In addition, Santa Fe built a new link from Oceanside to Orange County - the “Surf Line,” and San Diego’s first horsedrawn trolleys began to ply the city’s streets. Local opportunists saw potential in having more rail service in the area, and the period from 1885 to 1890 saw the organization and construction of no fewer than five independent railroad lines: the Central California the National City & Otay the San Diego, Old Town & Pacific Beach the Coronado and the San Diego, Cuyamaca and Eastern. With the coming of the railroad, sleepy San Diego boomed, its population doubling to 40,000 in a few years. The powerful San Francisco group finally had some competition.
So, only local trains ran between San Diego and Colton, until a few years of acrimony later, on November 26, 1885, the first transcontinental train arrived in San Diego. But the “Big Four” interfered - they weren’t about to let San Diego’s upstart line cross their SP line at Colton. In July of 1881, the newly organized California Southern began building a line from San Diego to San Bernardino, via Oceanside and Fallbrook, which neared its destination in September of the following year. To help swing the deal, Kimball offered vast quantities of his land, much of present day National City, for Santa Fe’s yard and offices. San Diego, stubbornly represented by Frank Kimball, fought for its own rail terminus and finally succeeded in striking an agreement in the late 1870s with the then fledgling Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. Later they organized the Southern Pacific (SP), which reached Los Angeles in 1876, thus creating a stranglehold on railroading in California. The selection of San Francisco was no accident - the CP’s “Big Four” financiers Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Collis Huntington and Mark Hopkins made it happen. The famous Golden Spike at Promontory, Utah, ceremonially driven in 1869, marked the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in the United States - the Central Pacific (CP), with its west coast terminus in San Francisco. You’ll be impressed and surprised as I was at the number and beauty of the railroad stations that we can still enjoy today.Ĭompared to other major California cities, San Diego’s first railroad was a long time coming. But they all represent the railroad in America, and they have each seen countless arrivals and departures of both trains and the people who have ridden them.Ĭome, then, whether an armchair traveler, a Sunday afternoon explorer, or an eager railfan to visit San Diego County’s reminders of both the past and present of railroad travel. The buildings range in architecture and size from the elegant mission-style station in downtown San Diego to tiny woodframe edifices, such as La Mesa, that held little more than an agent and serviced only a handful of passengers. Many others lead productive second lives - from offices and museums to restaurants and gift shops. The stations in San Diego, Del Mar, and Oceanside still bustle with daily Amtrak and freight activity. Only one train station has been razed in San Diego County in the past twenty-five years - Fallbrook.
And at least a half dozen others have been spared thanks to historical preservation efforts. Communities have banded together to find funds to buy and physically move three stations from trackside to streetside locations.
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A strong sentiment plus action and money have saved a number of these symbolic buildings. While many fine stations have met the wrecking ball and bulldozer across the country, we are fortunate in San Diego County and the neighboring border cities of Tijuana and Tecate to have 18 buildings that serve or have served as train stations. To the communities they serve, train stations represent the railroad, with its attendant nostalgia on the one hand and no-nonsense business on the other. These buildings somehow transcend the brick, wood, and glass that define their structure. There’s something special about train stations. Main Article | Santa Fe Stations | Spreckels Empire
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