Re: How many SF passenger trains out of LA in the 50's?
Author: BOB2
Date: 05-31-2020 - 18:10
Grand Canyon and inbound fast mail went via Fullerton, the rest are correct...
We used to have a lunch break just before noon, at Foothills Junior High School, where ome of the above mentioned folks would look down Second Avenue, to see the Chief go over Huntington Drive overpass (rebuilt as a classic bridge for the Gold line from the original Federal Highways US 66 grade separation) if the timing was right.
We watched Howard Hughes private car go by on the Super Chief... We used to wait up to see the mail train in the middle of the night in Clyde's back yard, now the 210 LRT bridge.
This was a time when horse cars were unloaded at Santa Anita Station, another haunt of my misspent youth, even collecting all of the peacock feathers you'd ever want from when the inbound Super Chief hit the flock of Peacocks from the LA County Arboretum across from the station, where the 130 year old palm trees are south of the 210 at Baldwin.
The Super Chief/El Cap ran as one train toward the end, but with separate sections during holidays and summer seasons (green flags). In old Arcadia, the signal was always green, but after the first section would go by would stay green for about 3O seconds, before turning yellow for the approach of the second section- that was "real" precision scheduled railroading...