Sacramento has spent decades cleaning up and finding new uses for two historic city railyards. Now the state of California wants to build a new one in the urban core.

State transportation planners are looking at sites in east Sacramento and at Sutter’s Landing Regional Park along the American River, as places to build a major new railyard and maintenance facility for Amtrak trains.

Word of the state Department of Transportation’s plans spread in the last few days and surprised city officials and developers hoping to build hundreds of homes on the east Sacramento site.

“We just learned about it this week,” said Megan Norris, vice president of Riverview Capital Investments. The firm, headed by former state Treasurer Phil Angelides, has been promoting plans to build McKinley Village, a 328-home development, on the vacant swath of land by the Capital City Freeway. The property is commonly known as Centrage, after one of several failed projects there.

Sacramento City Councilman Steve Cohn, whose district contains both areas under consideration, said the revelation that Caltrans was looking at the sites to service Amtrak trains “came as news to me.”

He said any plans to put a railyard at Sutter’s Landing Park, built atop a former landfill, would be unacceptable. A map of the proposal suggests the railyard could impinge on city parkland. Even if it didn’t, Cohn said the city is planning to expand the park by acquiring acreage now in private hands. “We spent a lot of time and effort to convert an industrial facility into a park,” he said.

Caltrans spokesman Mark Dinger said the department’s plans are preliminary, with the two Sacramento locations being evaluated.