For all of you history buffs that can help out a young guy, I have been wondering for some time now about what the Summit looked like back in the day. I heard that there might have been a station there at one time or something.[?] OR was it they way that it is now.
Pictures a good too.
Ask Trains customer service to send you the 2 magazine article they had of Summit station some 50 years ago with pix including pix of the SPRR line being built also at that time[:p]
Cool, thanks, but that doesn’t answer my question to keep this conversation alive.
The January and February 2004 issues carried that two-part story of Chard Walker’s life at Summit Station as a child- very interesting. He described it as out in the middle of nowhere, in a small community of RR worker families.
Yes, there was a station there. Chard Walker was the agent there for many years. Chard is also a railfan and has an extensive photo collection from his years working there. He lives up in Victorville now and is known to host occasional slide / photo shows for railfans at his house. Go over to the SoCal site and somewhere there is a trip report from one of his shows.
Looking from the highway summit pull out you can make out a fill that sweeps to the north in between the two lines (SP/SF). This is the original line. The station foundation (or at least part of it) is just north of the Palmdale line and about 100 yards east of Summit road. It’s the spot where the trees are. There was also a yellow car (the Descanso I think) that sat another 100 yards or so on the hill above the station. This car was put there by a railfan group and was used as a railfan quarters of sorts for guests. There were two mains and each had a sideing so it was at least 4 tracks wide.
Zak, Check your mail I drew you a quick map.
Chad, I got it. Wow, I didn’t know that was they way the old tracks went. I’m going to look into this more, I’m fascinated now.
I am interested in seeing what you find also.
BTW- the Martinez spur is on the original alignment.
Well some other poster gave you the date of the issues. So if you order them from Trains you can see whatever you are looking for all by yourself.