Southern Pacific’s Colton-Palmdale Cutoff

Southern Pacific’s freight traffic from Northern California to the Sunset Route to the southeast faced significant congestion in the Los Angeles area in the 1960s. SP’s solution was to build a 78-mile line across Cajon Pass and the western Mojave Desert. The line was completed in 1967.

The line starts at the San Joaquin Line in Palmdale, rises to the top of Cajon Pass (Summit on the Santa Fe, Hiland on the SP), and then roughly parallels the Santa Fe down the hill. It connects with the Sunset Route at Colton Yard.

Surveying the line in 1964. The Santa Fe at Summit is in the cut.

Southern Pacific is now part of Union Pacific, and Santa Fe is now part of BNSF. The Santa Fe tracks at Summit seen in the photos above have been relocated, and the Santa Fe on the west side of the pass is now 3 tracks.

Grading just east of Summit/Hiland. When the grading was just getting under way, driving on the grade was like riding a roller coaster!
One of the Santa Fe’s two tunnels at Alray is just visible in this photo. They have since been daylighted.
Underpass under route I-15.
Bridge over Cajon Creek. with my ’66 Dodge.
Ties being unloaded from a flatcar on Santa Fe’s Summit wye.
Placing Ties
Laying the rail.
Ballast train
The line in service. Helpers on an SP freight and Santa Fe’s Super C are both climbing the grade at Sullivan’s Curve (Canyon on the SP, Cajon on Santa Fe). However, the SP train is westbound by timetable direction (toward San Francisco) and the Super C is similarly eastbound (toward Chicago).

Gordon Glattenberg – Photographs and text Copyright 2021

2 thoughts on “Building a Mountain Railroad”

  2. Beautiful text and photo retrospective of an amazing and challenging piece of mainline Railroad construction. Cajon Pass is a great place to visit, as most members of this Website already know.

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