Massive El Niño-fueled hurricane swells have been relentlessly battering the Southern California coastline this summer, amplifying a severe coastal erosion crisis that extends from Newport Beach’s Wedge down to Orange County’s southernmost borders. But few locations have taken a beating as severe as the narrow stretch of sand in San Clemente, located just south of the iconic surf break at Cottons Point toward San Clemente State Beach. Here, giant ocean swells combined with ultra-high tides are crashing directly into the coastal rail corridor, causing significant service delays for Metrolink and passenger trains. Check out the scenes of chaos here and below. View this post on Instagram As sea levels rise and sand disappears, transportation agencies have routinely dumped thousands of tons of heavy boulders—known as riprap—along the shoreline to armor the tracks. However, local advocacy groups and environmentalists argue that hard armoring is destroying the very beaches and surf breaks it aims to defend.…