Nighttime Entertainment

We leave very close to the main rail line between LA and San Diego - close enough to see it if I walk 30 feet out my garage door. My son took this shot of the steam train that passed by here back on June 1:

Trains go by here several times a night, but we don't usually notice them. They rarely use their whistles because there are no grade crossings in the area. It's just become part of life after 18 years here. However, last night we heard all kinds of racket, from train whistles to trucks to back-up alarms to trucks dumping the aggregate rock used as a base for the tracks. I finally found out what was going on:

We would like to inform you of upcoming track work along Metrolink’s Orange County Line starting at Bake Parkway in Lake Forest running along our right-of-way to Paseo de Colinas near the city limits of Laguna Niguel and Mission Viejo. Please consider that since this is such a large area, the work will be moving along the track and not staying in one place for a long period of time. Work will take place on during the following days and hours:

Tuesday, May 27th and last until Monday, June 30th.

Monday through Friday evenings of every week from 9 p.m. until 5:00 a.m. the following morning.

The work will involve the use of heavy machinery and bright lights. There will be
noise from back up alarms and heavy machinery as well as dust.

The maintenance work that will be preformed is called “tamping and re-surfacing”.
Tamping is a process that uses on-track machinery to lift and line the track and “tamp” the gravel surrounding it. Tamping pounds and vibrates the gravel around the rails and crossties to pack it properly so it supports the track and allows proper drainage.

The track work to be accomplished is the replacement of track components as part of Metrolink’s ongoing scheduled maintenance program.

We'd noticed the same thing on several nights in the past couple of weeks. Looks like we have a few more nights of late night noise. Oh joy.