Santa Fe Railroad History needed for Southern California

[Anonymous]

I have decided to make my layout the route from Los Angeles to San Bernardino, California. I live in Fontana, California near the old Santa Fe tracks. They were recently removed and the old Fontana station sets abandon with graffiti. I cannot find any information on what trains ran through here in the '50's or '60's. It is right near Route 66. Can anyone help? ANY information about the line is appriciated. Thank you. [8D]

By the way, When you get to Rialto, which is the next city toward San Bernardino, the tracks are still there and there are some modern day railroad crossings. I have never seen any train pass however. The depot there is now a pizza restaurant.

[Anonymous]

A good place to start would be the historical archives of local libraries, books about the area, local newspapers, photo collections, etc may offer a glimpse into life during that era.

Wayne

[leighant]

Lots of good pictures in the great old Santa Fe: Steel Rails through California by Stan Kistler and Donald Duke. The first serious Santa Fe book I ever bought and still one of the best.
A book that is probably hard-to-find but worth the look... A Quarter Century of Santa Fe Consists covers Santa Fe passenger trains from the end of WW2 to the beginning of Amtrak. It covers the changes in consist as a train ran along the route, and how those consists changed from year to year. By careful reading, you can find what cars were in almost ANY TRAIN in any season of ANY YEAR, at ANY STATION! And in the back of the book, there are timetables for most trains, as they changed year by year, AND a roster of passenger equipment that ran during the period. This book sold for $8 or $10 when it was new. If you find it for $25 and you are at all interesting in ATSF passenger trains of the period, snatch it up. It is a bargain.

[SSW9389]

Fred Frailey's book, A Quarter Century of Santa Fe Consists, has been reissued as a CD and is available from the Santa Fe Historical & Modeling Society for about $10.

QUOTE: Originally posted by leighant

Lots of good pictures in the great old Santa Fe: Steel Rails through California by Stan Kistler and Donald Duke. The first serious Santa Fe book I ever bought and still one of the best.
A book that is probably hard-to-find but worth the look... A Quarter Century of Santa Fe Consists covers Santa Fe passenger trains from the end of WW2 to the beginning of Amtrak. It covers the changes in consist as a train ran along the route, and how those consists changed from year to year. By careful reading, you can find what cars were in almost ANY TRAIN in any season of ANY YEAR, at ANY STATION! And in the back of the book, there are timetables for most trains, as they changed year by year, AND a roster of passenger equipment that ran during the period. This book sold for $8 or $10 when it was new. If you find it for $25 and you are at all interesting in ATSF passenger trains of the period, snatch it up. It is a bargain.

[Anonymous]

The RR station/musuem in San Dimas has a library that may be of some use. I'm planning on modeling the same line, but 60's - 70's.

Check out this link: http://www.atsfrr.net/ Note the Pasadena convention. See you there?

[Anonymous]

Yesterday I visited the San Dimas museum and the good folks of the Pacific Railroad Society.

MR71, this IS the location for research on the LA 2nd division (Pasadena sub) SF line. It is a shrine to railroading in the area from the Pacific Electric days to the present. I was overwhelmed with the information available in their library, as I'll need several trips to consume all of the information (they have all the books mentioned above). It is staffed by PRS volunteers who were very eager to help in my search. Met one guy who was Rain man-like in his abilities to recall SF road numbers, loco model numbers and stats, and history of the 2nd division line. Best part was when the local freight train came by, everyone stopped what they were doing to watch it pass.

The museum/library is only open Wed & Sat, and can get quite busy on the weekend.

I was so impressed with the group that I joined the society right there on the spot. Check it out:

http://www.pacificrailroadsociety.org/index.html

[Anonymous]

All the pax trains except the Grand Canyon and San Diegans ran on this line during the period you're interested in. This includes the Super, El Cap, Chief, mail train. They had at least 1 local freight (most of the freights ran via Fullerton and Santa Ana Canyon).

The trains (including the Super) all ran via Fullerton and bussed the pax to Pasadena on New Years Day until mid-afternoon due to the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. ToR and RR staff stuck heavy ropes in the flangeways on the Colorado Blvd crossing to keep the horses from tripping.

The Hollywood crowd often liked to abandon the Super in Pasadena at the last minute to avoid the papparazzi at LAUPT.