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BNSF Railway Southern California Style Cajon Pass Tehachapi Pass Mojave Desert
BNSF Railway Southern California Style Cajon Pass, Tehachapi Pass and The Mojave Desert by Robert C Del Grosso
Hard Cover
112 pages
Copyright 2005
CONTENTS
California / Los Angeles Divisions 2004 Traffic Density Map 5
Chapter One - Southern California's New Railway, The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Merger 6 The Deed is Done; UP Challenges the AT&SF-BN Merger, Acquires the SP Instead; UP-SP Merger and Joint Trackage Rights Agreements; Proposed BNSF-CN Merger; New Company Logos; BNSF Grows Through Rail Partnership Agreements; BNSF Growth in Southern California
Chapter Two - Tehachapi Pass - Mojave Subdivision - Bakersfield to Barstow 11 Description of Subdivision; I-5 Corridor; Stockton Intermodal Facility; Port of Oakland; Southern Pacific Meets the Santa Fe; Southern California Rail Route Mileage Chart; Santa Fe's "Valley Road"; The Loop Route; Trackside Tour
Chapter Three - Cajon Pass - Cajon Subdivision - Barstow to San Bernardino 34 Description of Subdivision; Cajon Pass, Los Angeles and the Santa Fe; Trackside Tour; San Bernardino Intermodal Facility; San Bernardino Regional Operations Center; Los Angeles Area; Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach; Alameda Corridor; Los Angeles Intermodal Facility; BNSF Locomotive Maintenance and Repair Facilities; BNSF Logistics Center, Fontana; Carload Traffic; Victorville Intermodal Facility
Chapter Four - The Mojave Desert - Needles Subdivision - Barstow to Needles 59 Description of Subdivision; Southern Pacific Builds a Railroad for the Santa Fe; Barstow Classification Yard; Trackside Tour
Chapter Five - Into Arizona - Seligman Subdivision - Needles to Kingman 85 Description of Subdivision; Earlier Arizona Times; Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Builds West; A&P Construction, Kingman-Needles; Trackside Tour
Appendix A - U.S. Post Offices along the Right-of-Way 99
Appendix B - BNSF Railway Locomotive Roster 100
Appendix C - BNSF Corporation and BNSF Railway Statistics 101
Appendix D - Evolution of the AT&SF Railway in Southern California 102
Appendix E - BNSF Railway Yard Schematics 104 Mojave; Bakersfield; Barstow; Victorville; Needles; San Bernardino; Commerce; Hobart
Appendix F - BNSF Railway Equipment Configuration 112
Appendix G - Bibliography 112
INTRODUCTION
There is just something about California...A country all its own...Something for everybody...Geography...Death Valley ...Lowest point in elevation within the U.S...Mt. Whitney, highest mountain in the continental U.S...the great Central Valley...Sequoia National Park...Yosemite National Park... The Mojave Desert...San Francisco and the Oakland Bay... Mount Shasta...the giant redwood trees...Endless Pacific shores... Hollywood...Disneyland...Spectacular Railways. One need only an inclination and choose a destination and go. It's all there within one day's drive. California or Bust!
State Nickname: Golden State
State Motto: Eureka (I have found it) State Flower: Golden Poppy
State Tree: California Redwood State Song: I Love You, California
California is a sense of spirit, an impression of everything golden. It is optimism that life is good, free and bountiful. Its temperate climate is comfy just about year round. Freeways make everywhere easily accessible. Carefree. California has always been and still is the place of scenic beauty and adventure.
The name California originated with the Spanish conquistadors, possibly Cortez. It was originally referred to as a mythical land of Amazons ruled by the beautiful queen California in a Spanish novel entitled "The exploits of Esplandian" written in 1510. The term was first applied to Baja (Lower) California in 1562 and later to Alta (Upper and today's) California.
California was once thought to be an island and mapped that way, separated from the continent. That in itself made it different and especially intriguing. In truth, much of the state lies west of the San Andreas Fault and is moving northward toward Alaska about an inch annually, one earthquake at a time. Perhaps an island is its true destiny.
California has its own ancestry, discovered and settled by Spain and later a province of Mexico. A parallel universe existing for some 200 years while a group of British colonies concurrently developed along the Atlantic Coast, fought a war of independence, and became the United States whose American pioneers and settlers persistently expanded its territory west to the Pacific Ocean. Concurrently, the Southwest and California were settled by Spain and continued by Mexico.
Annexing California was the ultimate goal when the U.S. declared war on Mexico in 1846 after a clash over disputed territory in Texas. Two years later the Rio Grande River identified the U.S.-Mexico international border with Mexico ceding Alta California to the U.S. along with the provinces of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada and sections of Wyoming and Colorado, and part of Texas. These 850,000 square miles of northern territories had been the focus of attention in fulfilling a vision originating in 1845 of the United States stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, coined The Manifest Destiny.
The discovery of a large gold nugget at Sutter's Mill made California the place to be should one desire to get rich in one way or another. The Gold Rush was on, statehood followed, and 19 years later Sacramento became the western terminus of our nation's first transcontinental railroad, the Central Pacific/Union Pacific Railroads.
Since the Spanish settled California only as far north as San Francisco, although its territory extended to Oregon, the El's, San's and Santa's as part of the Spanish place names end there. Northward they are mostly of English and European origin, or transplanted from eastern states.
Southern California comprises fourteen counties of the state's forty-four, the dividing line generally running east-west at Fresno. Most visible, however, is Southern California distinctly preserves its Spanish and Mexican heritage through architecture, place names and a populous multi-cultural society.
It is through Southern California that the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway derived the western portion of its heritage, both through terrain and people as equally diverse. Along with other railroad giants in their time, it helped build Southern California into the megalopolis it is today. As California has been transformed throughout its history, the Santa Fe too has transformed itself into an even larger railway system through merger with the Burlington Northern Railroad.
This book is an overview of the transformation in how the BNSF Railway has operated in Southern California since the merger in September 1995. There are brief historical reviews of Santa Fe railway construction within each subdivision presented. Other major changes have occurred through operations and technology with the surrounding geography remaining relatively unchanged, beautiful, unique and pristine. The text is presented in a theme of other historical events related to the discovery and settlement of California of which the railroads later became an integral part, i.e. "this is the historical setting through which the BNSF Railway operates." Since BNSF Railway's visual presence has largely been reflected in locomotive paint schemes, they are discussed within the captions of the photographs in which they appear. The photographs are visual descriptions of the topography within each subdivision presented in east to west sequence. A trackside tour of name places also is presented so one may examine their historical relevance, either from the armchair or trackside - California style.
This book was produced independent of BNSF Corporation and BNSF Railway. Interpretations of and conclusions presented from information and statistics extracted from referenced sources within the bibliography are those of the author.
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