Steam & Excursion > Steam Trips Like These, Brought Out All Kinds Of Novelties!

While many modern steam events, like photo freight charters, try to recreate the scenes of old-time steam power in actual service, that was not the case with the original steam excursion trips.  We see and example of what those earlier trips were all about in this scene.

The date is June 9, 1956 and Gordon Glattenburg has been following Union Pacific 0-6-0 #4439 through the streets of Glendale, California on one of it's last excursion trips.   When he saw the train stopped along the way he could not help but snap this photo showing just what these trips bought out in the local citizens.

A local sporting goods shop decided this would be a perfect opportunity to create some advertising by following the train in this old flivver with their name plastered on the doors.  The driver sporting the straw hat with the ball fringe simply completes the scene.

Those were different times indeed.

Martin



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/20 03:47 by LoggerHogger.

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I did not know UP had tracks in Glendale. 
 

czuleget Wrote:
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> I did not know UP had tracks in Glendale. 
>  

The former Glendale and Montrose Railway. 

More photos of the same trip here:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4800464,page=1
 

Yup, think that was the line that went right by the Rose Bowl.

Out 

1. The former Glendle and Montrose box cab is out at So Cal RR museum *OERM( in Perris CA. (via Yakima Valley)
2. G&M and Pasadena branches were separate UP branches at the end..

Guess that's true (separate) in the end wasn't the Glendale end accessed off the SP across from Taylor?

Out



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/20 17:25 by callum_out.

The later UP connection to the Glendale branch was out of Taylor Yard crossing San Fernando Road at the SR-2 Freeway along the fence line of the Ribet Academy.
This all is just east of Fletcher Drive which the branch also crossed toward the Glendale Freight Station which was located west of Fletcher Drive.

James R.(Jim) Baker
Whittier, CA

callum_out Wrote:
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> Yup, think that was the line that went right by
> the Rose Bowl.
>
> Out 

I think you're confusing the UP Pasadena Branch with the Glendale Branch.

Didn't the branch that went North past the Rose Bowl end up in Glendale?

Out

Evan's thread in May 2019 said that the trip was sponsored by the LA chapter of the NRHS.  What happened to that chapter? 

Steve

callum_out Wrote:
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> Didn't the branch that went North past the Rose
> Bowl end up in Glendale?
>
> Out

The only tracks north of the Rose Bowl is the PE Sierra Madre line and those are several miles east.
Nothing went past the Rose Bowl.

Cornwall & Kelty Sporting Goods.  I think I still have a gas Colman stove from there.
IIRC the Glendale & Montrose (UP) diverged from the UP Pasadena branch just north of the Los Angeles River and ran NW a bit north of the SP main line (with the Taylor Yard complex south of the main line).
Sometime in the pre WWII decades the City of Los Angeles helped arrange the track sharing for the UP to run on the SP to near Fletcher so as to eliminate a lot of crossings and street running.
I remember once seeing a UP diesel on Glendale Blvd. switching the lumber yard a bit north of Broadway.
The City of Glendale hearlded it as great progress when the lumber yard morphed into a shopping center and the tracks went away.
And now that shopping center has been dwarfed by a bigger, newer mall.
Thanks for posting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/20 22:11 by railstiesballast.

I was talking about the UP line to Linda Vista, you could see the ROW when you came down 210 into Pasadena. I
didn't remember quite how close that line came to Glendale. Line ran very close to the Rose Bowl. 

Out



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/20 09:36 by callum_out.

PHall Wrote:
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> callum_out Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Didn't the branch that went North past the Rose
> > Bowl end up in Glendale?
> >
> > Out
>
> The only tracks north of the Rose Bowl is the PE
> Sierra Madre line and those are several miles
> east.
> Nothing went past the Rose Bowl.

The attached map, drawn by the late Ray Younghans, appeared in Interurbans Special No. 16.
It was intended to show details of the Pacific Electric Railway's operations in Pasadena and includes
some trackage of the Los Angeles & Salt Lake as well. The LA&SL line enters the map at the bottom,
along with the Santa Fe's as they both pass under PE's tracks on Fair Oaks Ave.. LA&SL tracks then
cross PE's tracks on Fair Oaks, at grade, continue northward crossing California, Colorado, Orange Grove,
Lincoln Ave (twice) and show ending in Altadena. 

Doesn't appear that the branch stopped before passing the location of the Rose Bowl and for sure it didn't
end up in Glendale. John Signor's The Los Angeles and Salt Lake has a photo of the depot in Pasadena. Says
it was built in 1910 and the site is now occupied by a freeway, I presume the 210?

Charlie

 

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Charlie, the map you posted clips the LAS&SL line North. The line ended near the intersection of Oak Grove and Linda Vista whioh
is well North of the Rose Bowl. The line ended due West of the Mountain Vew Cemetary. There was (might still be ) a building near
that intersecton with an odd lot line, the railroad clipped that lot. I can remember when the track was still in place, never bothered to
find the end of it. UP parked Rose Bowl trains on that line many years ago.
 
Out 

The UP branch did pass near enough to the Rose Bowl that you might have been able to see it while riding on a train.  The big difference is that the RB was built on the bottom of Arroyo Seco (dry wash) while the branch, in the same vicinity, was near the edge of the the wash.  The respective elevations were about 800 ft for the RB and 900 ft for the branch (see the 1928 map below).

However, this branch never went near Glendale, and could not have practically, because of a range of rugged hills in the way.  The only remote possibility would have been to proceed upgrade and northwest to La Canada and Montrose, there connecting with the Glendale and Montrose (which made a long climb from Glendale up Verdugo Wash).  But no such connection was ever made.

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Correct, as I said I never did  find the end of the branch and really wasn't sure why it existed though I think a quarry might
have been the reason or it was used to haull fill for the flood control projects upstream of the end of track. 

Out