Steam & Excursion > Venice Miniature Ry, Whittier Narrows Park, CA

Here are a couple of photos I took on 6-4-77 while at Whittier Narrows Park, CA ( east of LA ). They're of a steam operation there that lasted for a few years in the '70s using the Venice Miniature Ry #1. I beleive it ran around Legg Lake at the park. During a quick search on the internet about the engine, I found a post on Trainorders from 11-26-04 in the Steam & Excursion forum with quite a bit of info on the #1. How does one post a link to a previous post on TO? Anyone know what happened to the engine? This was a chance encounter at that time as I didn't even know of the train ride there as I had never been to the park before.

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I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley and visited Legg Lake in the mid '60s and I do not remember that railroad. My wife grew up in Alhambra and doesn't remember it either.
Those rails look like they'd been there awhile. Anyone have an idea when it was built?
2-10-2

Where is it now?  Still running?
 

2-10-2 Wrote:
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> I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley and visited
> Legg Lake in the mid '60s and I do not remember
> that railroad. My wife grew up in Alhambra and
> doesn't remember it either.
> Those rails look like they'd been there awhile.
> Anyone have an idea when it was built?
> 2-10-2

So the photos above are of the Legg Lake operation which was run by Don McCoy in the 1970s, after having wrapped up its time at Streamland Park right down the street, also in Whittier Narrows.    In the mid-60s it was running at Streamland.     The confusion usually comes from that fact that it ran in two different places in the Whittier Narrows dam area.

Oddly enough I just received some slide scans the other day of the Streamland Park operation from 1957.  Here are a few of them, courtesy the Mt. Lowe Preservation Society.

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/21 16:53 by Harlock.

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Keystone1 Wrote:
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> Where is it now?  Still running?

The enigine is stored serviceable and is still owned by the McCoy family.

It's sister Venice Railway #2 is operating at the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad in Los Gatos, CA.   

Eastlake Park #3, a cousin to those two also built by the Johnson Machine Works and used at the Venice operation is in the hands of a friend and being converted to 15" gauge.

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..

Here's a couple more from the Streamland Park operation in Pico Rivera.    Streamland was one of those downmarket carnie parks that brought a lot of joy to many kids from the 1940s to early 1970s.    The current Streamland Park in Whitter Narrows is not in the same location as the original.  The original location is now underneath a subdivision a few blocks away.
 

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..

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GreenFlag Wrote:
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> Here are a couple of photos I took on 6-4-77 while
> at Whittier Narrows Park, CA ( east of LA ).
> They're of a steam operation there that lasted for
> a few years in the '70s using the Venice Miniature
> Ry #1. I beleive it ran around Legg Lake at the
> park. During a quick search on the internet about
> the engine, I found a post on Trainorders from
> 11-26-04 in the Steam & Excursion forum with quite
> a bit of info on the #1. How does one post a link
> to a previous post on TO? Anyone know what
> happened to the engine? This was a chance
> encounter at that time as I didn't even know of
> the train ride there as I had never been to the
> park before.

Hi GreenFlag, here is a link to that post with a typically informative reply by my friend Ed Kelley:
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?10,824478

Would you mind if I posted these pictures in the Live Steam History of California group on Facebook?   They would compliment my recent Streamland Park photos nicely.

Best,

-Mike

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..