Feb 12
You may have wondered about the mysterious henge looming beside San Luis Creek in Avila Beach. It is one of the last remaining monuments to the dawn of modern Central Coast transportation, the Pacific Coast Railway. The concrete plinth was an underpinning to Bridge No. 5. The narrow gauge rails were in use for 66 …
Jan 12
Sixteen stories were jammed onto the front page January 9, 1943. The new railroad station in San Luis Obispo was scheduled to start construction January 11. The new building was estimated to be $50,000 and a total cost of $96,000 to move the old wood frame building and tracks. A centralized traffic control system had …
Sep 08
America needed steel to build tanks, trucks, landing craft, ships, aircraft, and machine guns. Not only was the nation gearing up to fight a war on two fronts but it was also filling the arsenals of Great Britain and the Soviet Union. The Axis powers had several years head start and some key raw materials …
May 02
One of the Southern Pacific’s last major routes constructed was on the Coast Line between Ellwood and Santa Margarita. The railroad, founded as the Central Pacific in 1861 did not arrive in San Luis Obispo until 1894 and did not complete a San Francisco to Los Angeles Coast route until 1901. Further construction revised the …
Feb 27
This photo is a thing of wonder and beauty on two levels. To start, anytime an old steam engine rides out of history into the present traffic stops. Railfans come from all over with their cameras to record the event. Southern Pacific 4449 was built in 1941 and is the last operable streamlined Art Deco …
Jan 03
Why would a modern day candidate ride the rails? Two words, fund raising. In 1996 you could ride in a train car with Republican Presidential candidate Bob Dole for a contribution of $5,000. The Speaker of the House at the time, Newt Gingrich was a more modest contribution of $1,500. Dole withdrew from the event …
Dec 05
The Thompson Bridge Company of San Fransisco was at Stenner Creek, building a structure that caused sense of wonder in the little cow county. People would drive out from San Luis Obispo in their horse and buggy or walk from town to see the magnificent structure take shape. They would see steel being lifted into …
Dec 01
They had to find the bridge before they could build it. After the tunnels had been carved into the Santa Lucia the Southern Pacific railroad snaked down the Grade to the foot of the mountain range where it makes a 180 degree turn known as the horseshoe. To maintain elevation the railroad had to span …
Nov 17
It is a bit of a tossup, kids today are presented with difficult choices but end of the 19th century had it’s share of danger. Morning Tribune editor Benjamin Brooks was surveying the railroad construction on Cuesta Grade when he came across this story. The story begins, as it often does, with boys looking for …
Jan 19
At first no one believed the school children, after all it was April Fools Day, 1886. As dawn broke in Arroyo Grande a man and his teen age son were dead, dangling from ropes below the narrow gauge railroad bridge. The children had seen the result of the only lynching documented in Arroyo Grande. The …
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