Amtrak Coast Starlight/dimview (# 0776)

Not a great shot, but politically important. Changes in shipping have resulted in most north-south freight rail traffic in California going through the Central Valley, a more easterly route. The route followed by Amtrak through the Salinas Valley and along the coast now has very little freight traffic. BUT, there are oil fields along the route and there are refineries in Southern California that are only accessible from that route – thus there are some long tanker trains that still use this route. Why this is important politically is because these older lines date back to a time of high levels of passenger use and thus go right through densely populated centers of many towns and cities along the route – and accidents do happen.