Western Railroad Discussion > Union Pacific trains along the Los Angeles River.

Union Pacific train along the Los Angeles River.

Chris

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I see it is a dead river with all those concrete...

Pedro Rezende
Vespasiano MG,
https://youtube.com/c/minasgeraisrailways1

basically a glorified drainage ditch.

BigDave Wrote:
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> basically a glorified drainage ditch.

That's what they wanted after all of the damage the floods of 1938 caused.

BigDave Wrote:
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> basically a glorified drainage ditch.

So, you are calling the Mississippi River and the Amazon River glorified drainage ditches?

jst3751 Wrote:
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> BigDave Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
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> > basically a glorified drainage ditch.
>
> So, you are calling the Mississippi River and the
> Amazon River glorified drainage ditches?

Are they encased in concrete?

That pic of LA river is misleading.
That river becomes a raging torrent when iwe have a decent rain.
A lot of groundcover that used to absorb rain is long gone.

Was just reading about plans for the LA River. They are trying to figure out how to make it more natural and improve connections across it for the various neighborhoods. But they have to keep the flood capacity so it can quickly push floodwaters out to sea. If I remember right, the article said the big flood in the 1930’s was caused by something like 30” of rain in ~24 hours. This is for a region that gets a few inches per year on average - at most.

There’s a big wash along I-15 after you come down Cajon Pass, it’s the next canyon west I think. It is amazing to see the size of the boulders in there that were all placed there “gently” by nothing more than the force or water. I would love to watch that, safely from a distance!

Nathan

Posted from iPhone

On a morning after about 5" of rain I was Hy-Railing along this stretch of the river.
I had to go 35 MPH to keep up with the flow.
The piers of the bridges looked like the bows of serious warships chasing the enemy, huge plumes of water.
This was with the water a little over half way up the banks (my guess).
Yes, whatever the Friends of the River do to make it look nice, the political leaders have to be the adults in the room to be sure life safety and public infrastructure is not placed at risk.

Prior to the 1938 floods, the transcon crossed Cajon creek at Cozy Dell and ran on the East side of the creek
to Cajon Station.  The West bridge abutment is still there, a bit lower than the new right of way.

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BobP Wrote:
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> That pic of LA river is misleading.
> That river becomes a raging torrent when iwe have
> a decent rain.
> A lot of groundcover that used to absorb rain is
> long gone.

It's been 20 years since I lived in Los Angeles County, but back then there were plans to restore at least parts of the river to a more natural state. Yes, I can attest to the "raging torrent." I saw that several times while I lived there. The great flood of 1938 that was mentioned washed out a road in the San Gabriels, leaving a beautiful new concrete arch bridge orphaned. It was nicknamed "The Bridge to Nowhere."

I used to cycle regularly along the San Gabriel River, which is concrete for about the last 16 miles as it heads toward the ocean. You generally could ride in the river bed, and occasionally one would see police honing their motorcycle skills there. Cycling also gave me a chance to do a little railfanning, since the SP ran on the other side of the bicycle path for part of the way. When one would get to the part that was more or less "natural," it was not unusual to see a variety of waterfowl and wading birds in the water, when it was not at flood stage, of course. I could indulge in three hobbies at once: cycling, railfanning, and birding. Great days!



N

The estimated maximum flow for the Los Angeles River during the 1938 flood was 100,000 cubic feet per second. To put that into perspective, the current flow of the Mississippi at St. Louis today is 104,000 cfs. When they created the flood control system, the assumption was that most of the San Fernando Valley to the northwest of downtown would remain agricultural. Of course, it is all built up and heavily paved now. As a result, the channel is no longer big enough in places to support the possible flows.

I took these shots of the L.A. River at Main Street on March 16, 2005 a day or so after a storm.-BMT 

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atsf121 Wrote:
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> There’s a big wash along I-15 after you come
> down Cajon Pass, it’s the next canyon west I
> think. It is amazing to see the size of the
> boulders in there that were all placed there
> “gently” by nothing more than the force or
> water. I would love to watch that, safely from a
> distance!

That is probably Lytle Creek you are referring to.  I remember standing next to it after a particularly heavy rain...you could hear, but not see, the boulders under the water striking each other.  It was eerie.

I have seen the Los Angeles River about 2/3 up on a couple of occasions...its amazing that a docile concrete lined channel can become such an angry, muddy, torrent.

BigDave Wrote:
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> basically a glorified drainage ditch.

Works for me. Rather have that then flooding and damage to property, maybe loss if life. If someone wants to hug a natural river, there's plenty in the mountains surrounding the LA basin.

Posted from Android