Crews started clearing brush and preparing a hillside in northern San Clemente this week to build a 1,400-foot-long wall that hopes to keep landslide debris from shutting down a key coastal rail line.

The work by the Orange County Transportation Authority, in coordination with Metrolink, is being done as an emergency action to “protect the community and rail passengers, as well as ensure the safety and reliability of overall rail operations,” agency officials said.

The wall will be on the bluffside of the tracks at Mariposa Point, where a popular pedestrian bridge collapsed during a landslide following heavy storms in late 2023. It will be similar to one put in place below the Casa Romantica Cultural Center, where a landslide earlier that same year also threatened tracks.

Commuter and

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