The Sacramento City Council on Tuesday approved a $290,000 redesign of the downtown railroad track relocation. Work on the $68 million railroad track relocation project was delayed after bids came in $12 million over budget in May and developer Thomas Enterprises defaulted in June on more than $187 million in private loans, used to buy the 244-acre historic railyards in 2006. The project, which includes construction of the Fifth and Sixth street bridges, makes up the first phase of the new regional transportation center to be built adjacent to the Sacramento Valley Station downtown. The council approved funding to redesign the track relocation portion of the project, budgeted at $45 mil

Maintenance work began Wednesday on Union Pacific railroad tracks in the Downtown Sacramento railyards, while ongoing upgrades continue at the historic Sacramento Valley Station. Union Pacific has started rail maintenance work on existing tracks. Rail cars that are part of a track replacement train known as the TRT 909 are pulling up the rail and replacing railroad ties underneath, said Aaron Hunt, public relations director for Union Pacific. "We have track improvement projects going on throughout the state currently," he said. The work is not part of the $60 million Downtown track relocation project, said Richard Rich, development director of Thomas Enterprises' Railyards project. The

The city of Sacramento is about to ask the state of California to make good on its promise to award at least $20 million for railroad track relocation so work can start by May. Unable to sell as many bonds as expected, the state has not disbursed $20 million in trade corridor funds that was awarded last year under state Proposition 1B. Next week, the city will ask the California Transportation Commission to borrow $25 million against the bond money, said Linda Tucker, spokesperson for the city's Department of Transportation. "We've got to get this going," she said Friday, when the city announced it had met a Dec. 1 deadline for another $20 million in federal stimulus funding. The city a