Western Railroad Discussion > PG's Railroad - The Monterey Branch

When I first moved into Pacific Grove last summer, one of the first things I did was to walk the old SP right of way in town. Except for one broken segment made by a trailer park, it's amazingly intact. There are still parts where the rails are visible. Let's start the tour near the Monterey-Pacific Grove border. This part of the Monterey Branch is now the coastal bike and walking trail.

At one time the American Tin Cannery had a spur off the branch in Pacific Grove as marked by this boxcar bumper.

A couple of rails remind bikers and the walkers who had the right of way first.

Past the American Tin Cannery is the Monterey Branch's claim to fame. Many people rode the Del Monte for views of Monterey Bay like this one.

Looking towards the Pacific side as the right of way wraps around the coast line. The victorian inn in the background is owned by one of Photobob's in-law relatives!

Past the depot site is the trailer park which breaks up the right of way. Here it starts again and runs all the way to the end.

The city golf course was at one time sliced in half by the Southern Pacific. The Santa Cruz Local was not the only train attacked by golf balls. The Monterey Local had its share of incidents.

Just past the city golf course and 17 Mile Drive.

Near Lighthouse Ave is this sign which says the PGPD still recongnizes this as Southern Pacific property!

Looking down towards Asilomar from Lighthouse Ave. The branch goes down a good grade to get into the sand plant.

The rails are paved over at Pico Ave approaching Asilomar.

Looking south into Asilomar. The siding where the Monterey Local ran around its train began just beyond this grove of trees and ran to Sinex Ave. I must also mention this is where the town's cougar prowls during the evening for deer! Yes, we have a live cougar in Pacific Grove.

Finally near the end of track at Sinex Ave. The branch wrapped itself around Hayward Lumber, then dumps itself into Lake Majella just off Sunset Ave. It would have been fun to see the Monterey Local in its heyday, but as they say its all crap now…

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[img::]https://cdn.trainorders.com/attachments/thumbs/41000/pgrr_13.jpg[/img]

Sam,
Thanks for the posting your photos. Old rights of way are out there, waiting to be rediscovered.

Roustabout out

Really neat! I had no idea how far south the line ran until you showed me here.

Bryce

Just past the depot, up by the old docks was a wig-wag or 2 that were left. You really had to know what you were looking at to see them. They were all rusted and peices had fallen off from the salt air. They were still there in the 70s and I think into the 80s.

Best job I ever worked was 126 &141. 3 days pay in one round trip.


Nudge

spnudge Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just past the depot, up by the old docks was a
> wig-wag or 2 that were left. You really had to
> know what you were looking at to see them. They
> were all rusted and peices had fallen off from the
> salt air. They were still there in the 70s and I
> think into the 80s.
>
> Best job I ever worked was 126 &141. 3 days
> pay in one round trip.
>
>
> Nudge


Yep, Tommy the Rocket DeLaRosa (just turned 85) who qualified as SP steam engineer in '55 still says the Del Monte was the sweetest run he ever had. BTW, had dinner with him last month and he is doing very well----all the docs are absolutely amazed at how he beat back the colon cancer!! And we ride the Monterey- PG rec trail quite frequently on our bikes and of course, I am there weekly at the aquarium. What fabulous views!! We'll be spending 2 days at the Lighthouse Lodge May 1-2 with Carl's fraternity brothers' reunion and will explore some of that ROW area down by the golf course and Asilomar etc.
One of the docents at the Steinbeck Center with us is Joe Bragdon who worked for the SP in the late '30's in Monterey at the warehouse (now removed) and drew me a map of where everything was.
C.

I'm glad that they didn't have a cougar (that I knew about) in the 70s when my family always had a reunion with cousins from LA every August. At least 1 day per visit, the adults would sit in the motel at Sinex and Asilomar and visit while us kids would hike the tracks and wait for the train. By about '75, we were old enough to walk the tracks through the pitch black night up to the cemetery at Lighthouse Ave--where we dared each other to walk through (the OLD part). The train was a daily visitor back then. I have some really bad photos around somewhere.
One year during the 80s, my cousin went for a visit with his new wife. They found the tracks pulled up. The switch stand for the lumber yard was still in, so as a rememberance of his childhood------well, let's say that it lives to this day down in Sierra Madre. I only wish that I had taken more photos and that I would have been there at the end to snatch the Asilomar Station sign.

rh
SPO

Lived close to the sand plant (which I think used to be owned by Libbey-Owens-Ford) as a kid in the early 1960s. The Monterey local often had 35-40 cars, including industrial sand (natch!), lumber, probably newsprint for the newspaper, occasional heavy equipment, etc--all the desiderata one might expect to see from a healthy local.

As I recall, the Del Monte Express parked overnight in Pacific Grove--remember catching it in Monterey for San Francisco and having the equipment pull into the station from Pacific Grove with a couple of passengers already aboard. It boasted half a diner, so you could order cereal and coffee, but I don't recall being able to order a hot breakfast.

Sam, thanks for the posts. Very nice shots by the way. I live out in Carmel Valley, so I'm fortunate in that I can get to these locations on my leisure. Thanks for the descriptive locations.
Kent