05-28-2012, 08:19 AM
Citrus is still a big agricultural product in So Cal. The groves that used to be in areas convenient to Los Angeles have been replaced by housing tracts. The new groves have been moved up into the foothills. There are large citrus and avocado groves in the hills on either side of I-15 in Southern Riverside County and Northern San Diego County. Farther north around Oxnard, Ventura, and in the valley west of Santa Clarita, they grow almost every type of produce known to man including citrus, lettuce, cabbage, as well as various types of "rock fruit". People don't realize that even with manufacturing that has been started in California, the state is still largely an agricultural state. Riverside still has a few packing houses in use, but most packing houses in So Cal are no longer rail served. 90% of the refrigerated containers going to the far east from Los Angeles/Long Beach harbors is citrus. The citrus going to the East Coast by train is usually loaded into trailers or containers and carried on tofc or cofc. What citrus is loaded into refrigerated rail cars is trans loaded from trucks near the rail yard, but I don't think there is much being loaded into refrigerated rail cars South of Bakersfield unless they are loaded in Ventura County. I don't think they can grow citrus trees much farther north than the area East of Bakersfield because of the cold and frost. Florida primarily produces juice oranges while California produces most table fruit. The juice content of the Florida Oranges is much higher due Florida getting to more rain than California receives. Going North to the NMRA convention in Sacramento in 2010, I saw long cuts of ARMN reefers on the U.P. tracks adjacent to hwy 99. I haven't been into the Imperial Valley in years to know how the produce is shipped out of there, but most going out of Los Angeles, Orange, or San Diego Counties, goes out in trailers or containers.