Valley passenger rail is expanding. Here’s how businesses can bid on $1.2 billion in projects
Passenger rail planners will hold a Sept. 14 event in Stockton for businesses hoping to bid on $1.2 billion worth of upcoming work.
The effort involves the Amtrak San Joaquins as well as the Altamont Corridor Express. Both are expanding as part of a $1.8 billion effort known as Valley Rail.
The free gathering, Industry Day, will run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Worknet Center, 6221 West Lane. It will deal with 17 distinct projects that are in the first phase of Valley Rail.
The session is hosted by the San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission, which oversees the expansions, and the San Joaquin Business Development Center.
The projects will include double-tracking in many places to reduce conflicts with freight trains on the ACE and Amtrak corridors. Both lines will add stations and upgrade existing stops where needed.
Major contractors are likely to get much of the business, but they might seek subcontractors for some of the tasks, SJRRC Executive Director Stacey Mortensen said in a news release.
“Industry Day is not just about bringing our transformative Valley Rail projects to the construction phase,” she said, “but about creating a forum for local small businesses and subcontractors to network with likely bidding prime contractors, furthering SJRRC’s commitment to our corridor communities.”
ACE will branch to Sacramento and Merced
ACE runs four weekday round trips between Stockton and San Jose, aimed at commuters to Bay Area jobs. It stops at the Lathrop/Manteca border and in Tracy, Livermore, Pleasanton, Fremont, Santa Clara and San Jose.
ACE will expand north to Sacramento and south to Merced, with various stations opening between 2026 and 2030 under the current timeline.
The southern extension will have stations by late 2026 in Manteca, Modesto and Ceres. North Lathrop and Ripon will get theirs in 2027, followed by Livingston in 2029 and Merced in 2030.
The northern branch will have stations by late 2026 in Elk Grove, Midtown Sacramento and Natomas. Stops will be added in Lodi in 2027 and at Sacramento City College and Old North Sacramento in 2029.
Modesto residents already can visit one notable piece of the effort, the renovation of a 1915 depot for the upcoming ACE service. Simile Construction Services completed work on the Ninth Street building on separate contract with the city. It is part of a transit center that also serves buses.
Capital will see more of Amtrak
Amtrak has five daily round trips between Bakersfield and Oakland and a sixth branching north to Lodi and Sacramento. The expansion will add three capital trips a day, two of them sharing ACE’s northern tracks.
Most of the funding for the expansions came from fuel taxes paid by drivers.
These services are intended to tie into the state’s first high-speed rail segment, between Merced and Bakersfield. Construction is well under way between Madera and Shafter, Kern County. The planners need several billion more dollars to reach Bakersfield and Merced.
For more information or to register for the Stockton event, visit www.sjrrc.com.
