Here's a photo I took on May 23, 1982, FORTY-ONE YEARS AGO, when the Pacific Southwest Railroad Museum ran the "La Mesa Cannonball" excursion on the SD&AE's La Mesa Branch. This was before the line was re-built and became a light-rail line for the San Diego Trolley. They ran a series of trips from La Mesa to El Cajon and some friends of mine and I figured this was a rare enough of an event that we should drive from the L.A. area to experience it.

I'm not exactly sure where along the line this photo was taken, but I'd like to find a present-day Google Streetview image of the area to do a "before and after" comparison.

I've also included the promotional flier for the trip and my ticket, which I've saved all these years, amazingly enough .

PSRMA also used to run some neat excursions from Mexicali, B.C. to Puerto Penasco, Sonora on the Sonora-Baja California Railroad, and some friends of mine and I rode those on a couple of occasions, which introduced me to Mexican passenger railroading. I was hooked.