From the first stirring of a Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad
locomotive in January 1869, to the merger with Union Pacific on
September 11, 1996, Southern Pacific’s Los Angeles Division in all of
its manifestations was an engine of growth and prosperity in Southern
California. It employed many thousands over the years in its offices,
shops and trains. It brought settlers west, established towns, brought
war workers in and sent the troops home.
Much has been written about the Southern Pacific and its subsidiaries in
the Southland. This volume was conceived to augment these works by
tracing the long and involved operating history of the Southern Pacific
as it first helped to create Southern California, then later adapted to
cope with its explosive growth. Accompanying the text are over 1,000
photographs—most never published, including 456 in color—timetables and
other ephemera, and 76 maps, many of which are rendered in the author’s
unique “bird’s eye view” style.
With Los Angeles as a destination of significance from the beginning,
the author has been able to draw from a wealth of historic material on
the subject, preserved by the railway itself, official repositories,
interested employees and other individuals which includes photographs,
first hand experiences and the day-to-day paperwork that documented how
SP operated in Southern California. Southern Pacific’s Los Angeles
Division is sure to find a place on the book shelves of those interested
in the SP, or the history of Southern California as a whole.
