Santa Fe Pasadena CA line info Vs Gold Line

[bluepuma]

As a former Angeleno living near the ATSF line in '70, representing it on my MRR layout, I am wondering what the traffic was with loads and such in Pasadena. Noticed that the Gold line commuter is now running from LA to Pasadena, Sierra Madre, but Mapquest shows the ATSF line ending from the west at the 110, Pasadena Freeway, and from the east at Rosemead Blvd.. I wonder what traffic is on the old line, it looks like any would stop at Arcadia now.

I used to drive along Colorado to school at PCC, and the foothill freeway when it stopped at Rosemead in '72 when I worked in the SF Valley and lived in Monrovia, or drove across Pasadena on the Truck route near the tracks. I can't look now cause I moved to Illinois 5 years ago and live 120 miles west of Chicago, not too far from where the ATSF lines go to Chicago. My end of the Rainbow and "Pot of Gold" is here, my wife. Back in farmland, but corn and soybeans, not strawberries, vineyards, cabbage, citrus, onion fields.

- Puma
Granville, IL

[Anonymous]

All of the former ATSF trackage was ripped up west of where the old bridge across the east-bound I-210 freeway lanes to the median was torn out in Arcadia. This was done at the behest of the "city leaders" of Pasadena back in the mid 1990's, in order to preclude the possibillity of a much cheaper "Metrolink" service utilizing the ROW rather than the much more expensive to build "Gold Line" LRT. That is also why the old ATSF Pasadena Sub bridge crossing the L.A. River was ripped out and replaced with the much lighter weight capacity "Gold Line" bridge along the different alignment almost a decade prior to the funding of the rest of the LRT line.
At the time, funding for the full LRT line was shelved for budgetary reasons and many rail advocacy groups were proposing a "Metrolink" alternative, so the City of Pasadena lent the L.A. M.T.A. the money to rip out the old ATSF bridges and build the new light-weight L.A. River bridge, with the attitude of "Modern Electric Light Rail or No Rail Whatsoever through Pasadena".

[DPD1]

QUOTE: Originally posted by bluepuma

As a former Angeleno living near the ATSF line in '70, representing it on my MRR layout, I am wondering what the traffic was with loads and such in Pasadena. Noticed that the Gold line commuter is now running from LA to Pasadena, Sierra Madre, but Mapquest shows the ATSF line ending from the west at the 110, Pasadena Freeway, and from the east at Rosemead Blvd.. I wonder what traffic is on the old line, it looks like any would stop at Arcadia now.

On your layout... Do you have angry little Pasadena residents standing next to the tracks shaking their fists at the trains? :-)

Dave
-DPD Productions - Home of the TrainTenna RR Monitoring Antenna-
http://eje.railfan.net/dpdp/

[MP57313]

QUOTE: Originally posted by DPD1
On your layout... Do you have angry little Pasadena residents standing next to the tracks shaking their fists at the trains? :-)
Dave

Actually I think you mean South Pasadena? That's where those banners were posted along the r-o-w. They sure have toned down the crossing bells/chimes there, and you can barely hear the trains horns {sounds more like a muffled kazoo}

As for freight traffic, on a recent exploration up that way, the closest active freight siding was between Arcadia and Monrovia.