With Mt. Shasta rising in the background, a Baldwin road-switcher works the Southern Pacific yard at Dunsmuir, Calif., in the 1950s. Mac LeFebre photo […]
SP yard at Dunsmuir, Calif.
Zone & Region: California
BNSF, UP trains collide near Tehachapi Loop NEWSWIRE
Auto racks on a derailed BNSF train near Walong, Calif. Phil Cornyn BNSF and UP locomotives involved in a collision near Walong, Calif. Phil Cornyn Cars derailed in a collision near Walong, Calif. Phil Cornyn BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – Early this morning, a BNSF Railway train rear-ended a Union Pacific freight in Southern California, about 40 miles […]
Hollywood’s leading movie railroad
McCloud River 2-8-2 No. 18 pulls a fictitious circus train past a movie set for the film “Water for Elephants” at Piru, Calif., along the Fillmore & Western Railway in May 2010. David Lustig Remember that train scene you saw last night on television, or last weekend at the movie theater? There’s a good chance […]
Amtrak to detour Coast Starlight over Tehachapi Loop NEWSWIRE
LOS ANGELES – Amtrak is planning to detour its southbound Coast Starlight between Oakland and Los Angeles in March and April due to track work. Instead of its normal route along the California Coast, train No. 11 will travel Union Pacific’s ex-Southern Pacific route via the San Joaquin Valley and Tehachapi Loop. The detours are planned for March 13-15, March 24-30, […]
California’s Salton Sea: A rail photo gallery
The Salton Sea in Southern California was formed in 1907 when men tried to redirect Colorado River irrigation canals and caused a two-year flood. It spans the intersection of two great deserts: the Mojave to the north and the Sonoran to the south and west. Summer temperatures routinely hover at 120 degrees. In the 1950s […]
An aggravating situation, with a 1940s solution
Santa Fe 2-8-2 3243 climbs west toward Summit, Calif., in 1952. Chard Walker In the early 1940s, when steam locomotives were supreme, I worked on the Santa Fe around Los Angeles. At Redondo Junction, today the north end of the “Alameda Corridor” to the L.A. and Long Beach harbor facilities, Santa Fe’s Harbor Branch left […]
Caltrain passengers forced to leap out of the way of commuter train NEWSWIRE
The platform at Caltrain’s San Francisco station was empty on Oct. 14, 2009, but on Aug. 24, 2012, passengers getting off a northbound train at the South San Francisco station (a short distance away) had to clear the tracks quickly to avoid being struck by an express train rushing through the station without warning. Scott […]
My ‘bad-luck’ engine
Santa Fe 4-8-4 No. 3760, author Elwood’s “bad luck” engine, leads the second section of the Grand Canyon west near Hesperia, Calif., in the 1950s. Don Sims My story takes place in 1943, when steam locomotives were supreme, and tells about my experiences with Santa Fe 3751-class 4-8-4 No. 3760. I was firing in passenger […]
Santa Fe’s Surf Line
Read more about Santa Fe’s Surf Line in the following two PDFs: “Santa Fe Surf Line, 1940” by Keith Jordan, published in the August 2004 issue of Trains magazine “The Secret Borax Train” by Don Richardson, published in the Summer 2005 issue of Classic Trains magazine. Download each story by clicking on the underlined PDF […]
UP and SP at LAUPT
Union Pacific 4-8-4 803 and a Southern Pacific E7 wait outside Los Angeles Union Passenger terminal in the late 1940s, ready to back down to their respective trains. The E7 is for the Golden State, while the 4-8-4 is likely for the Los Angeles Limited. Herbert Johnson photo […]
The towerman was a kid
Near the end of its San Francisco–L.A. run, SP GS-2 4-8-4 4415 rolls “Overnight Merchandise” train 374 through Glendale. Herb Sullivan In 1954, when I was 14 years old, my family moved to within a few blocks of Southern Pacific’s Glendale Tower north of Los Angeles. I soon became friends with the second-trick towerman, and […]
Winding through wind
Union Pacific C44AC-CTE No. 5374 leads a mixed-freight train past Milepost 366.7 past wind turbine generators on its way to Monolith, Calif., on April 25, 2011. William Steck photo […]
