“Big, beautiful” Santa Fe 4-8-4 3779 talks it up through Pasadena’s Lamanda Park area with First No. 3, the California Limited for Los Angeles, in June 1945. Stan Kistler I lived in Pasadena, Calif., during the final days of steam on the Santa Fe. I particularly remember the 3776-class 4-8-4’s built by Baldwin in 1941. […]
A trio of BNSF power has doublestacks and autoracks in tow at Martinez, Calif., on Nov. 29, 2004. Tom Murray photo […]
Union Pacific “Heritage” SD70ACe No. 1989 emerges from the tunnel at Newcastle, Calif., on July 31, 2010. The engine is leading UP’s high-priority Chicago-Lathrop, Calif., intermodal train, and it’s on the home stretch to the Roseville, Calif., yard. Jake Millie photo […]
Southern Pacific 2-10-2 3757 rests at Sparks, Nev., in 1948. J. F. Larison I went firing on the Southern Pacific’s Coast Division in 1953. My engineer’s name was Lindsay, a hoghead in the regular San Francisco-Watsonville Junction (Calif.) chain gang. I fired for Lindsay several times and, although he never checked the water level by […]
Click the image to download this interactive PDF. Dick Steinheimer knew an era was coming to an end in the Sierra Nevada. It was 1983, and the wooden snowsheds that had long protected Southern Pacific Railroad’s mountain crossing over Donner Pass were disappearing, most of them torn down or replaced by concrete sheds. That spring […]
Three Union Pacific diesels muscle a southbound intermodal train under classic Southern Pacific searchlight signals near Mojave, Calif., on Sept. 3, 2010. In the background are the Tehachapi Mountains, site of one of the world’s most impressive railroad crossings of a mountain range. Photo by William Steck […]
SP’s Los Angeles General Shops UCLA Dept. of Geography, Air Photo Archives Southern Pacific facilities dominate three views of Los Angeles. Much in this 1934 scene is gone, or greatly changed. SP’s Los Angeles General Shops, the most complete railroad maintenance facility the city has ever seen, was replaced by an intermodal yard in the […]
Passengers enter Los Angeles Union Station during the 2009 winter holidays. Railroads continue to play an important – and growing – role in California’s well-patronized public transportation. Scott Lothes Shadowed by the Vincent Thomas Bridge, doublestacked containers rest in the hold yard outside of APL’s Global Gateway South Terminal located within the Port of Los […]
What’s that? This is the summer when you visit every NASCAR track and Elvis memorial in Dixie? Forget it. Your passports are ready so you can take the kids to Six Flags over Cambodia? Put ’em away. There’s a family reunion in Wisconsin and you promised to bring the cheese curds and bratwurst? Let the […]
Rare find: Working in Cajon Pass helper service, Santa Fe center-cab Baldwin 2600 heads west at Summit. David Lustig collection I think I was about 14 or 15 when the word got out that I liked trains. It was not a secret, you understand, but unless I seriously misjudged him, I don’t think my father […]
Though half of its train continues to ascend a 1.0 percent grade, BNSF 4617 East has crested the summit at East Ash Hill, about seven miles east of Ludlow, Calif., on the morning of Oct. 8, 2009. Within a few thousand feet, all 50 autoracks of BNSF Train V-SDGCLO1-07 (Vehicles, San Diego, Calif. — Clovis, […]
Southern Pacific 4-6-0 No. 9 rolls on one of the last narrow gauge lines in the West with a Class I railroad as a parent. Bill Poole, Carson & Colorado Railway Inc. collection Southern Pacific’s 3-foot gauge line in California’s Owens Valley became famous as one of the last slim gauge lines in the West […]
