Finally, caught the Torrance job coming through Gardena after crossing over the Harbor Freeway. If not for the UP Gensets, where would you think this shot was taken based on the ROW?
I really like the 2nd one, the Amtrak Maintenance Facility shot - the blues and grays on the locomotives and the sky and buildings in the background all harmonize together. Nice clean foreground and fine detail in the tools and equipment. Nice composition, too - it ought to be a calendar page photo. [tup]
In contrast, the 3rd UP genset photo is almost depressing. I’d have guessed either Mexico or the back streets of the Tampa, Florida area. I know - ‘‘That’s reality’’, but still . . . The comments from others on the RP.net site say all that needs to be said. There’s not much inspiring or informative to that, other than how much money the railroad R-O-W saves the locals from having to pay in disposal costs . . . [sigh]
The 1st BNSF photo is kind of a happy medium - definitely urban, but ‘neat,’ in both senses of the word. Maybe my ‘white-bread WASP’ upbringing is showing, but that one is OK with me - shows the railroad at work in its environment.
Always appreciate your terrific and very insightful comments, Paul.
I do wish some of the other LA Basin branch lines were still there… but when the industry pulled out of Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Culver City, and the like, the railroad was soon to follow. The only three lineswe are left with now are the UP Torrance and El Segundo lines, and the BNSF Harbor Sub as far as LAX.
Hey, you’re welcome, Charles. It’s always fun to look at your photos and the informative captions = vicarious / ‘arm-chair’ / (‘office-chair’ ?) traveling.
Too bad about all the lines that are gone - I know the feeling well. Wouldn’t you just love to get a photo of a train with a ‘‘Rodeo Drive’’ street sign in the foreground - or holding up a gaggle of the ‘Beautiful People’ ? [;)]
That woudl be great. When I first moved here, the ROW through Beverly Hills was intact, although the train station had been torn down and replaced with a very vanilla looking office building.
I had a job in 1988 in another new office building, which was built on the site of the old Wonder Bread Plant (the reason why the Beverly Hills line had lasted in the 1970s). There was a track behind the building I worked at, which ran up to the Beverly Hills branch on Santa Monica.
Today even those little vestiges are gone. The ROW through downtown Beverly Hills has some very thin parking structures built all the way along it, and the Wonder Bread area now hosts about four office buildings.
There is one tiny stretch left running east of Beverly Hills City Hall to the West Hollywood border.
I’m not big on Photoshopped images, but there is a part of me that wants to get a nice photo over there and then Photoshop and UP local train onto it, just for fun.
It’s been awhile since I lived out there, but the second I looked at the photo in question, it made me think of “Alpine Village” not so much the actual shopping center as rail lines I remember being in the immediate vicinity. Torrance Blvd & Normandie, that general area.
The track is being rail banked, although I am not sure anything will ever run on it again. It’s pegged at the Manchester grade crossing. Trains no longer go north of LAX on the south end, or west of Wildassin on the north end (and in the latter case, almost never west of Malabar, as there is nearly no business beyond there).
There are folks in Torrance who want to reactivite it as a commuter line, and with a rebuild of the wye track at Redondo Junction, it would have direct access to LAUPT. While I am a big fan of the idea, the excessive amount of grade crosssings on the line make me wonder if it is at all realistic.
As an aside, this was originally the line to Playa del Rey. It was later reset and rebuilt to be the California Southern’s line to Santa Monica. Later still (but also over 100 years ago), a branch to Redondo Beach was built. The Santa Fe then sold the section from Inglewood to Santa Monica to the Pacific Electric (or its predecessor) and the remaining Santa Fe line became the Redondo Beach line (hence Redondo Jct in downtown LA where it meets the rest of the Santa Fe). In the 1920s or 30s, an extension was built from El Segundo to Wimlington to get to the harbor. With passenger service dwindling, the Redondo Beach line became the branch.
The Santa Monica connection and the Redondo Beach line were both abandoned around the 1970s, leaving just the line from LA to Wilmington.
When the Alameda Corridor opened, the line was pegged at Manchester, with the limited service I noted above being all that was left.
Most of the ROW to Rendo Beach is still there (passing through Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach). Although there is NO chance of it being relaid, in my mind it would make a perfect commuter train route and have a huge usage.
Maybe what I’m about to suggest is a little too far east (in San Bernardino County), but in 2007 the Pacific Electric “Eastern Division” mainline through downtown Rialto was still active. The eastern end of the line tied into the Espee Palmdale Cutoff and the west end, about a mile west of the P.E. downtown Rialto passenger station building, served a building materials yard.
East of the Rialto depot quite a few of the rail joints still had the heavy bond wires in place - so characteristic of electric traction operations.
The first photo featuring the GP40X with the blue and yellow Santa Fe herald on the nose is a good one. Beyond just the railroad subject, I’m always impressed anytime I see the Los Angeles River with that much water in it!
Do they not go to Rialto anymore? Last time I was out there would be about 2007 I would guess, not that I ever saw a train on that line, but it seemed like it was active then.
Wasn’t there a railroad concrete underpass at one time, up somewhere around Centinela and E Hyde Park Blvd? I used to drive under one all the time up there, but can’t remember the exact location, and can’t find any trace of it on Google Maps
Is the Redondo beach line you speak of the same one that used to cross under Pacific Coast Highway just south of Rosecrans? Seems like some computer superstore expanded their parking lot into the right of way after the tracks were pulled up.