Many, many movies made there, some with trains, what railroad serviced (serves) the area? where did they come from Fresno? or from south or north, it’s pretty spectacular country, any one have information on this area?
Here is a site that will anwser all of your qustions. It is from the Lone Pine Chamber Of Commerce
In addition to the narrow gauge, SP had a standard gauge line from Mojave to Line Pine. If I remember correctly, it started as a narrow gauge. It now only goes as far north to the connection with the Trona Railroad.
The farewell to SP addition of either Trains or Pacific Rail News has a photograph of a local on the branch. It consisted of an SD40, a reefer, a few boxcars, and a caboose. The SD40 was pre-rebuild, so the photograph had to be anyhwere from 1966 to 1980.
Just north of Lone Pine was the Owenyo yard where the transfer from the standard gauge Jawbone branch (from Mojave) to the narrow gauge took place. The NG was abandoned in 1960. The Jawbone was cut back in stages. See the following link:
http://www.abandonedrails.com/Lone_Pine_Branch
Lone Pine is an interesting town beyond the movie locations. It’s the base for hikes to the top of Mt. Whitney (highest mt. in the lower 48 states). It seems to be a popular stop for international tourist between Las Vegas/Death Valley and Yosemite.
Great information and a treat to google the area, an interesting area indeed, Spencer Tracy did a movie here and got off a train in the middle of nowhere, 4 buildings and a road, this peaked my interest in railroads in the area, old railbeds are still visible (standard and narrow guage), hundreds of movies were made in the area and still are, too bad there are no trains around. Evidence of many mines in the area also.
The Owens Valley is fairly wide. Most of the towns developed on the west side of the valley at the foot of the rainwater catching Sierras. Geologic processes put much of the mineralization and veins into the rocks adjacent to granite domes like the Sierras, so most of the mines are on the opposite side of the valley, and the narrow gauge followed the E side and missed most of the towns.