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Building a Mountain Railroad

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.
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Construction of Southern Pacific’s
 Colton-Palmdale Cutoff

1966-1967

The line in use at Sullivan’s Curve. Santa Fe’s Super C is overtaking helpers on an SP freight as both head toward the summit of Cajon Pass. Super C is eastbound by timetable direction, while the SP freight is westbound (heading toward San Francisco).

In 1966 and 1967, Southern Pacific provided a rare spectacle for me – construction of a brand-new main line.

In 1876, the railroad completed its San Joaquin Line from Central California over the Tehachapi Mountains to Los Angeles, then it proceeded to build the Sunset Route east toward El Paso and New Orleans. However, by the middle of the Twentieth Century, the Los Angeles area had become a bottleneck for traffic to the southeast, so SP planned a bypass. Read more