The Los Angeles Terminal Railway, earlier known as the Pasadena Railway, and unofficially as the Altadena Railway, was a small terminal railroad line that was constructed between Altadena and Pasadena, California in the late 1880s. It was a byproduct of a land boom period and a victim of the land bust that occurred soon thereafter. It opened officially on January 31, 1888.

Inception

The service was originally organized as the Pasadena Railway Company in 1887 by investors John Woodbury, James Swartout, and the two prominent and wealthy Altadenans,

Andrew McNally Andrew McNally (1836–1904) was an American publisher and co-founder of the company Rand McNally. Early life On March 4, 1836, McNally was born in Armagh Armagh ( ; ga, Ard Mhacha, , "Macha's height") is the county town of County Arm ...

and Colonel

George Gill Green George Gill Green (January 16, 1842 – February 26, 1925) was a patent medicine entrepreneur, and Union surgeon in the American Civil War. Biography George Gill Green was born in Clarksboro, New Jersey, to Mary Ann and Lewis M. Green. Gree ...

, mutual friends of McNally from

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

and Green from

Woodbury, New Jersey Woodbury is the county seat of Gloucester County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the South Jersey region of the state.Highland Railroad Company which accessed his property. Brothers John and Frederick Woodbury were the developers of the Altadena community located north of Pasadena against the

San Gabriel Mountains The San Gabriel Mountains ( es, Sierra de San Gabriel) are a mountain range located in northern Los Angeles County and western San Bernardino County, California, United States. The mountain range is part of the Transverse Ranges and lies between ...

. Frederick had a Ranch house near the Piedmont ( Altadena Drive) and John had proposed building a mansion near the homes of McNally and Green. Andrew McNally was the co-founder of the famed map making company

Rand McNally Rand McNally is an American technology and publishing company that provides mapping, software and hardware for consumer electronics, commercial transportation and education markets. The company is headquartered in Chicago, with a distribution ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

and had retired to Altadena in 1887. Green had made his fortunes in

patent medicines A patent medicine, sometimes called a proprietary medicine, is an over-the-counter (nonprescription) medicine or medicinal preparation that is typically protected and advertised by a trademark and trade name (and sometimes a patent) and claimed ...

and elixirs with his company based in

Woodbury, New Jersey Woodbury is the county seat of Gloucester County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the South Jersey region of the state. LA Terminal RW

The railway originated at a terminus near the Raymond Station by the Raymond Hotel which was the premier Pasadena winter residence for many eastern magnates. The rails roughly paralleled Fair Oaks Avenue, then crossed Lincoln Avenue to the east then again to the west and headed toward the Arroyo Seco. It turned northward to an area called Las Casitas (the little houses) then swung wide to the east to an alignment with today's Harriet Street in Altadena and ran between Mendocino and Calaveras streets to a terminus on Lake Avenue which would align with the present-day Altadena Post Office building. This

right-of-way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

agrees with the original plan of a railroad on Woodbury's 1887 plot map, and lends support to the idea that this railroad had greater purpose than that of appeasing a couple of millionaires, even though they were often the only riders. Depending on which end of the railway one might live, the line was called either the Pasadena Railroad or the Altadena Railroad. The Altadena terminus when adjoined by Professor Lowe's

Mount Lowe Railway The Mount Lowe Railway was the third in a series of scenic mountain railroads in the United States created as a tourist attraction on Echo Mountain and Mount Lowe, north of Los Angeles, California. The railway, originally incorporated by Thad ...

was then named "Mountain Junction."

Expansion of the line

By 1890 the Pasadena/Altadena Railway was assumed by a couple of other failing rail lines that connected it to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

. It became an immediate success. In July 1891 it was joined again with a line that connected it to San Pedro. The line was renamed the Los Angeles Terminal Railway, and subsequently so was its San Pedro terminus at Rattlesnake Island, now

Terminal Island Terminal Island, historically known as Isla Raza de Buena Gente, is a largely artificial island located in Los Angeles County, California, between the neighborhoods of Wilmington and San Pedro in the city of Los Angeles, and the city of Long Be ...

. The original Woodbury plan to have a line run from an Altadena railroad yard to

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

, was still in the offing, but the railway's financial difficulties made such an expansion impossible. In 1891 the principals of the Los Angeles Terminal Railway, including Los Angeles mayor William H. Workman were again thinking of building a road to Salt Lake City. Up to this time there were many railroads that had gone so far as to plot their plans on paper.

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pac ...

(UP) was alone in any effort at all to construct this line. However, only one titan was willing to put his money into action,

William Andrews Clark William Andrews Clark Sr. (January 8, 1839March 2, 1925) was an American politician and entrepreneur, involved with mining, banking, and railroads. Biography Clark was born in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. He moved with his family to Iowa in 1 ...

, a wealthy

Montana Montana () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West List of regions of the United States#Census Bureau-designated regions and divisions, division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

magnate and banker. In August, newspapers announced that the Los Angeles Terminal Railway had been purchased by Clark and that Henry Hawkgood had started surveys for Clark. Little known until this point was that Clark had also obtained all rights to the Utah and California Railroad (U&C), a line planned to build from Salt Lake City to the

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

state line. Although the U&C was only a railroad on paper, it provided Clark with valuable information and location maps. Incorporated in Salt Lake City in 1901 as the

San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad The Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was a rail company in California, Nevada, and Utah in the United States, that completed and operated a railway line between its namesake cities ( Salt Lake City, Utah and Los Angeles, California), via ...

, the line offered state-of-art passenger amenities even though its main attraction for Clark was the potential in freight services. E. H. Harriman (then President of Union Pacific) took immediate notice. This new "Salt Lake Route" utilized trackage in Utah originally constructed for the UP, and the UP held an equity interest in the new line. Renamed the

Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad The Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was a rail company in California, Nevada, and Utah in the United States, that completed and operated a railway line between its namesake cities (Salt Lake City, Utah and Los Angeles, California), via Las Ve ...

in 1916, the Salt Lake line was eventually absorbed into the UP system, and remains an integral part of that railroad today.

Quarrying in the Arroyo Seco

By 1901 a spur track had been laid into the Arroyo Seco near Devil's Gate for the purpose of quarrying rock for the construction of the Los Angeles Harbor breakwater. By 1903 the trans-Altadena service was abandoned and the rails were pulled up. It took decades for the bordering properties to assume the abandoned right-of-way, and to this day slight traces of where the rail line passed through can be sleuthed out.

Abandonment

By 1916 quarrying in the Arroyo had been abandoned since the rock material proved to be too unstable for its intended purposes, and by 1921 the Arroyo–Windsor lines were taken up. Shortly thereafter, there being found no viable use for the railway, the remainder of the original line was abandoned altogether. Today only a fenced right of way can be seen passing between the buildings and houses between Windsor and El Sol Avenues in Altadena. A fenced-in section can also be seen adjacent to the northbound Lincoln Avenue off ramp of Interstate 210, where the train used to head toward the Las Casitas flats.

References

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External links

Map and pictures of the Los Angeles Terminal Railway
{{DEFAULTSORT:Los Angeles Terminal Railway Defunct California railroads Transportation in Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad Predecessors of the Union Pacific Railroad Railway companies established in 1888 1888 establishments in California Railway companies disestablished in 1901 19th century in Los Angeles Altadena, California History of Los Angeles County, California History of Pasadena, California San Gabriel Valley