Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-07-01
SALT LAKE TO BUILD
THROUGH CAJON PASS
ROAD TO ENTER DESERT OVER
OWN TRACKS
viii Penetrate Mountain Wall by
New Line to Be Constructed,
Abandoning Use of
Santa Fe Rails
Especial to The Herald.l

SAN BERNARDINO, June 30.-Los
Angeles will soon have another trans
continental artery of shipping, or, what
amounts to the same thing, a new en-
trance way for one of the great rail-
way lines which now come into it from
the east
The San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt
Lake railroad, popularity known as the
Salt Lake route, has survey stakes
set, grade levels figured, and other
preparatory work done for an entirely
new line through the Cajon pass.
Hitherto the Salt Lake route trains
have come into Los Angeles and gone
out again over its own tracks as far
as San Bernardino, thence over the
Santa Fe tracks eastward through the
mountain wall to Otis, a small town
on the desert beyond Daggett. From
there the Salt Lake owns its own
roadbed to Salt Lake City.
Now, however, the Salt Lake will
build its own line from Riverside in
a great arc out around San Bernardino,
passing within a few hundred yards
of Arrowhead Hot Springs and coming
into the Cajon pass on the eastern
wall of the gorge and about seven
hundred feet above the tracks of the
time, held absolute control of the right
of way through the cash In the maunt-
ain wall.
Secrecy Preserved
Great secrecy has been maintained
by all departments of the Salt Lake
route over the new work, but the fact
remains that survey and grade stakes
have been set over all of the sixty or
seventy miles of the new route-and
that they were set by the Salt Lake
route engineers. When actual work
will be begun on the grade is not
known, but the right of way has been
inspected by high officials of the road,
and is admitted to have been found
satisfactory.
It is a we'll known fact that the
traffic agreement or lease by which
the Salt Lake secured the use of the
Santa FEES tracks through the Cajon
pass was of such nature as seriously
to hamper the freight traffic of the
Salt Lake. In other words, the Santa
Fe kept the pie of Southern California
and gave the Salt Lake the crust.
IT is also understood that there is
an agreement limiting the number of
passenger trains the Salt Lake could
operate through the pass every "a
hours
If these reports of the limitations
of the agreement are true, and they
probably are, the new line means that
Southern California will get much
improved and practically unhampered
freight and passenger service over the
Salt Lake route. giving this end of the
state practically another road east.
What this really means the fruit and
freight shippers of the southwest will
raa1iza avap more than those who traV-
ell over the line eastward.
In railroad circles the setting of the
grade denotes a victory of the Salt
Lake railroad over the Santa Fe after
a long and hard fought battle for pos
session of narrow strip of land on
the barren eastern side of Cajon pass.
The coming of the Salt Lake tracks
into the pass on a level 700 feet higher
than that at which the Santa Fe now
traverses the gorge, will give trains
of the former much less of a pull up
to the summit than the Santa Fe now
has, and will, of course, facilitate the
speed of trains and the handling of
both freight and passengers.
Going out of the Cajon pass on the
eastern side, the Salt Lake route has
secured its own right of way into
Otis, where it's main line now leaves
the Santa Fe, and trains will there
have a more gradual descent to the
level floor of the desert than ever be-
fore.