Cajon Pass

Cajon Pass (/kəˈhoʊn/; Spanish: Puerto del Cajón or Paso del Cajón) is a mountain pass between the San Bernardino Mountains to the east and the San Gabriel Mountains to the west in Southern California. Created by the movements of the San Andreas Fault, it has an elevation of 3,777 ft (1,151 m). Located in the Mojave Desert, the pass is an important link from the Greater San Bernardino Area to the Victor Valley, and northeast to Las Vegas. The Cajon Pass area is on the Pacific Crest Trail.
Cajon Pass is at the head of Horsethief Canyon, traversed by California State Route 138 (SR 138) and railroad tracks owned by BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad. Improvements in 1972 reduced the railroad's maximum elevation from about 3,829 to 3,777 feet (1,167 to 1,151 m) while reducing curvature. Interstate 15 does not traverse Cajon Pass, but rather the nearby Cajon Summit, 34°20′58″N 117°26′47″W, elevation 4,260 feet (1,300 m). The entire area, Cajon Pass and Cajon Summit, is often referred to as Cajon Pass, but a distinction is made between Cajon Pass and Cajon Summit.thumb|A freight train passing in front of Mormon RocksIn 1851 a group of Mormon settlers led by Amasa M. Lyman and Charles C. Rich traveled through Cajon Pass in covered wagons on their way from Salt Lake City to southern California. A prominent rock formation in the pass, where the Mormon Road and the railway merge (at , near Sullivan's Curve), is known as Mormon Rocks.
==Name:==
In Spanish the word cajón refers to a box or drawer. The name of the pass is derived from the Spanish land grant encompassing the area; it was first referred to in English on an 1852 map. Early Latter-day Saint documents, which often referred to the pass as "Cahoon Pass", suggest an alternate explanation for the name, that it is named in honor of Mormon pioneer Andrew Cahoon (pronounced similarly to Cajon), who was an early settler in nearby San Bernardino and assisted in surveying and laying out the city of San Bernardino.
==Rail transport:==
===Traffic:===
The California Southern Railroad, a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, was the first railroad through Cajon Pass. The line through the pass was built in the early 1880s to connect the present day cities of Barstow and San Diego. Today the Union Pacific Railroad and BNSF Railway (the successor to the Santa Fe) use the pass to reach Los Angeles and San Bernardino as part of the Southern Transcon. Due to the many trains, scenery and easy access, it is a popular location for railfans, and many photographs of trains on Cajon Pass appear in books and magazines.
The Union Pacific Railroad owns one track through the pass, on the previous Southern Pacific Railroad Palmdale cutoff, opened in 1967. The BNSF Railway owns two tracks and began to operate a third main track in the summer of 2008. The railroads share track rights through the pass ever since the Union Pacific gained track rights on the Santa Fe portion negotiated under the original Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. The original BNSF (ATSF) line was built in the 1880s and later roads, U.S. Route 66 and I-15, roughly followed this route. The 3.0% grade for a few miles on the south track is challenging for long trains, making the westbound descent dangerous, as a runaway can occur if the engineer is not careful in handling the brakes. The second track, built in 1913, is 2 miles (3.2 km) longer to get a lower 2.2% grade. It ran through two short tunnels, but both were removed when the third main track was added next to the 1913 line. Trains may be seen traveling at speeds of 60 and 70 mph (97 and 113 km/h) on the straighter track away from the pass, but typically ascend at 14 to 22 mph (23 to 35 km/h) and descend at 20 to 30 mph (32 to 48 km/h). With the third track, the BNSF lines have a capacity of 150 trains per day.
===Incidents:===
*The steep downhill grade south of the pass was a contributing factor in the May 12, 1989, San Bernardino train disaster.
*Cajon Pass was the site of a major accident on December 14, 1994, when a westbound Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe intermodal train lost control and crashed into the rear of a westbound Union Pacific coal train just below California Highway 138, between Alray and Cajon. Thankfully, the Santa Fe crew warned the Union Pacific crew ahead of time, and the UP crew on the helper locomotives at the back of their train bailed out and were uninjured, while the Santa Fe crew received minor injuries after bailing out in turn before impact. All of the Santa Fe and UP helper locomotives involved in the collision suffered irreparable damage and were scrapped, while the lead UP locomotives were undamaged.
*On February 2, 1996, a brakeman and a conductor were killed when a Santa Fe manifest train derailed and caught fire at Cajon Pass.
*The August 16, 2016 Blue Cut Fire destroyed a trestle on the Union Pacific mainline.
*On August 21, 2018, a train carrying hazardous materials derailed, causing a FedEx facility near the tracks to evacuate, along with one school that took shelter.
===Passenger service:===
Amtrak's Desert Wind used the pass until it quit running in 1997. The Southwest Chief runs daily between Chicago and Los Angeles, through Cajon Pass on the BNSF line.
In 2020, Brightline initiated planning for a high-speed route between Victorville and Rancho Cucamonga as an extension of their forthcoming Brightline West service. The route was not initially considered by the project's preceding operators, as it was seen as prohibitively expensive.
==See also:==
* 1989 Cajon Pass Runaway
==External links:==
*A photographic report of Tehachapi and Cajon Pass (May, 2012)
Category:Railway Lines
Category:Railways
Category:Railroads