Los Angeles Terminal Railway
Encyclopedia
Terminal Railroad
Terminal Railroad or Terminal Railway may refer to:*Terminal railroad, a railroad that operates a terminal facility*Terminal Railway Alabama State Docks*Terminal Railway of Buffalo, predecessor of the New York Central Railroad...
line that was constructed between Altadena
Altadena, California
Altadena is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States, approximately from the downtown Los Angeles Civic Center, and directly north of the city of Pasadena, California...
and Pasadena, California
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
in the late 1880s. It was a byproduct of a land boom period and a victim of the land bust that occurred soon thereafter. It opened officially on January 31, 1888.
Inception
Though the reason for establishing the small railroad is argued by historians, it is apparent to some that there was a need to provide some sort of public passenger service between the two communities. Others say that it was the whimsy of two particular, wealthy Altadenans to provide themselves with the refined means of a daily train ride to get themselves from home to office and back home in a style grander than that of a horse and buggy.The service was originally organized as the Pasadena Railway Company in 1887 by investors John Woodbury, James Swartout, and the two prominent and wealthy Altadenans, Andrew McNally
Andrew McNally
Andrew McNally was born in Armagh, Northern Ireland, and immigrated to New York City in 1857. A printer by trade, he moved to Chicago in 1858 and got a job in a print shop owned by William Rand at a wage of $9 per week. Rand and McNally became business partners and incorporated Rand, McNally & Co...
and Col. G. G. Green (aka) George Gill Green
George Gill Green
George Gill Green was a patent medicine entrepreneur, and Colonel in the American Civil War.He was born in Clarksboro, New Jersey to Ellen and Lewis M. Green . George's mother was from Pennsylvania, and his father was working as a butcher...
, mutual friends from with McNally from Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and Green from Woodbury, New Jersey
Woodbury, New Jersey
Woodbury is a city in Gloucester County, New Jersey, in the United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, 10,307 residents were counted. Woodbury is the county seat of Gloucester County....
.
Swartout had a large estate between New York Dr. and Boston St. near Maiden Lane which lies in a lower section of Altadena near the Pasadena border. He already owned the horse drawn Highland Railroad Company which accessed his property. Brothers John and Frederick Woodbury were the developers of the Altadena community located north of Pasadena against the San Gabriel Mountains
San Gabriel Mountains
The San Gabriel Mountains Range is located in northern Los Angeles County and western San Bernardino County, California, United States. The mountain range lies between the Los Angeles Basin and the Mojave Desert, with Interstate 5 to the west and Interstate 15 to the east...
. Frederick had a Ranch house near the Piedmont (Altadena Drive
Altadena Drive (California)
Altadena Drive is one of the major east-west roadways in Altadena, California, stretching almost continuously from one end of the town to the other. The road is actually a convergence of several smaller roads which were established over the half century of a growing Altadena community...
) and John had proposed building a mansion near the homes of McNally and Green.
Andrew McNally was the co-founder of the famed map making company Rand McNally
Rand McNally
Rand McNally is an American publisher of maps, atlases, textbooks, and globes for travel, reference, commercial, and educational uses. It also provides online consumer street maps and directions, as well as commercial transportation routing software and mileage data...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and had retired to Altadena in 1887. Green had made his fortunes in patent medicines and elixirs with his company based in Woodbury, New Jersey
Woodbury, New Jersey
Woodbury is a city in Gloucester County, New Jersey, in the United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, 10,307 residents were counted. Woodbury is the county seat of Gloucester County....
and was invited by McNally to move to Altadena in the same year. McNally and Green were heavily invested in the small railway, and each had a siding for his own private car to be pulled up alongside their properties which stood on either side of Santa Rosa Avenue from each other.
Route description
Raymond Hotel (Pasadena, California)
The Raymond Hotel located in South Pasadena was the first major resort hotel of the San Gabriel Valley which, for the most part, served as a winter residence for wealthy easterners. It was built by Mr. Walter Raymond of Raymond & Whitcomb Travel Agency of Boston, Mass...
which was the premier Pasadena winter residence for many eastern magnates. The rails roughly paralleled Fair Oaks Avenue
Fair Oaks Avenue (Pasadena, California)
Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena, California, is a major north-south road connecting the communities of Altadena, Pasadena, and South Pasadena, running in length. It starts at its southernmost end in South Pasadena at Huntington Drive. It travels due north to a terminus above Loma Alta Ave. in...
, then crossed Lincoln Avenue to the east then again to the west and headed toward the Arroyo Seco
Arroyo Seco
The Arroyo Seco, meaning "dry stream" in Spanish, is a seasonal river, canyon, watershed, and cultural area in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The Arroyo Seco has been called the most celebrated canyon in Southern California.-River course:...
. It turned northward to an area called Las Casitas (the little houses) then swung wide to the east to an alignment with today's Harriet Street in Altadena and ran between Mendocino and Calaveras streets to a terminus on Lake Avenue which would align with the present-day Altadena Post Office building. This right-of-way
Right-of-way (railroad)
A right-of-way is a strip of land that is granted, through an easement or other mechanism, for transportation purposes, such as for a trail, driveway, rail line or highway. A right-of-way is reserved for the purposes of maintenance or expansion of existing services with the right-of-way...
agrees with the original plan of a railroad on Woodbury's 1887 plot map, and lends support to the idea that this railroad had greater purpose than that of appeasing a couple of millionaires, even though they were often the only riders.
Depending on which end of the railway one might live, the line was called either the Pasadena Railroad or the Altadena Railroad. The Altadena terminus when adjoined by Professor Lowe's
Thaddeus S. C. Lowe
Thaddeus Sobieski Coulincourt Lowe , also known as Professor T. S. C. Lowe, was an American Civil War aeronaut, scientist and inventor, mostly self-educated in the fields of chemistry, meteorology, and aeronautics, and the father of military aerial reconnaissance in the United States...
Mount Lowe Railway
Mount Lowe Railway
The Mount Lowe Railway was the third in a series of scenic mountain railroads in America created as a tourist attraction on Echo Mountain and Mount Lowe, north of Los Angeles, California. The railway, originally incorporated by Professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe as the Pasadena & Mt. Wilson Railroad Co...
was then named "Mountain Junction."
Expansion of the line
By 1890 the Pasadena/Altadena Railway was assumed by a couple of other failing rail lines that connected it to Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. It became an immediate success. In July 1891 it was joined again with a line that connected it to San Pedro. The line was renamed the Los Angeles Terminal Railway, and subsequently so was its San Pedro
San Pedro, Los Angeles, California
San Pedro is a port district of the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. It was annexed in 1909 and is a major seaport of the area...
terminus at Rattlesnake Island, now Terminal Island
Terminal Island
Terminal Island is an island located in Los Angeles County, California between Los Angeles Harbor and Long Beach Harbor. Originally a mudflat known to the Spanish as Isla Raza de Buena Gente, and later called Rattlesnake Island, it has officially been Terminal Island since 1918...
.
The original Woodbury plan to have a line run from an Altadena railroad yard to Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...
, was still in the offing, but the railway's financial difficulties made such an expansion impossible. In 1891 the principals of the Los Angeles Terminal Railway, including Los Angeles mayor William Workman
William Workman
William Workman was an Irish-born Canadian businessman and municipal politician.- Biography :Workman migrated to Montreal, Quebec in 1829....
were again thinking of building a road to Salt Lake City. Up to this time there were many railroads that had gone so far as to plot their plans on paper. Union Pacific Railroad
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the largest railroad network in the United States. James R. Young is president, CEO and Chairman....
(UP) was alone in any effort at all to construct this line. However only one titan was willing to put his money into action, William Andrews Clark
William Andrews Clark
William Andrews Clark, Sr. was an American politician and entrepreneur, involved with mining, banking, and railroads.-Biography:...
, a wealthy Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
magnate and banker. In August, newspapers announced that the Los Angeles Terminal Railway had been purchased by Clark and that Henry Hawkgood had started surveys for Clark. Little known until this point was that Clark had also obtained all rights to the Utah and California Railroad (U&C), a line planned to build from Salt Lake City to the Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
state line. Although the U&C was only a railroad on paper, it provided Clark with valuable information and location maps.
Incorporated in Salt Lake City in 1901 as the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, the line offered state-of-art passenger amenities even though its main attraction for Clark was the potential in freight services. E. H. Harriman
E. H. Harriman
Edward Henry Harriman was an American railroad executive.-Early years:Harriman was born in Hempstead, New York, the son of Orlando Harriman, an Episcopal clergyman, and Cornelia Neilson...
(then President of Union Pacific) took immediate notice. This new "Salt Lake Route" utilized trackage in Utah originally constructed for the UP, and the UP held an equity interest in the new line. Renamed the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad
Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad
The Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was a rail company that completed and operated a railway line between its namesake cities, via Las Vegas, Nevada. Incorporated in Utah in 1901 as the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, the line was largely the brainchild of William Andrews Clark,...
in 1916, the Salt Lake line was eventually absorbed into the UP system, and remains an integral part of that railroad today.
Quarrying in the Arroyo Seco
By 1901 a spur track had been laid into the Arroyo SecoArroyo Seco (Los Angeles County)
The Arroyo Seco, meaning "dry stream" in Spanish, is a seasonal river, canyon, watershed, and cultural area in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The Arroyo Seco has been called the most celebrated canyon in Southern California.-River course:...
near Devil's Gate for the purpose of quarrying rock for the construction of the Los Angeles Harbor breakwater. By 1903 the trans-Altadena service was abandoned and the rails were pulled up. It took decades for the bordering properties to assume the abandoned right-of-way, and to this day slight traces of where the rail line passed through can be sleuthed out.
Abandonment
By 1916 quarrying in the Arroyo had been abandoned since the rock material proved to be too unstable for its intended purposes, and by 1921 the Arroyo-Windsor lines were taken up. Shortly thereafter, there being found no viable use for the railway, the remainder of the original line was abandoned altogether.Today only a fenced right of way can been seen passing between the buildings and houses between Windsor and El Sol Avenues in Altadena. A fenced-in section can also be seen adjacent the northbound Lincoln Avenue off ramp of Interstate 210
Interstate 210 (California)
Interstate 210 and State Route 210 together form a contiguous highway, called the Foothill Freeway, in the Greater Los Angeles area of the U.S. state of California. The western portion of the route is an auxiliary Interstate Highway, while the eastern portion is a state highway...
, where the train used to head toward the Las Casitas flats.