What a fascinating film! There are many films of this railway posted here; but this is the only one I'm aware of to show a full-length passenger train hauled by steam. It's also the only one I'm aware of to show the line before the construction of Goat Canyon Trestle, which happened in 1933 following the collapse of a tunnel. There are other diversions built since this film was made; but I cannot spot where any of them, including the trestle, are. If anyone knows better than I in that respect, it would be great to hear where in the film such diversions now are. Thank you - both for the uploading and for the preservation of this film.
Actually, the money came from Southern Pacific after E.H. Harriman died in 1909. Spreckles couldn't even afford to start construction before then. History has proven Harriman right about the SD&E...it was a turkey of a railroad, as SP found out after they bought out the Speckles heirs in 1936 after Speckles died. I doubt that this road ever turned a profit. ATSF's Surf Line was a far better route.
Such a spectacular railway stands abandoned instead of being used for touristic purposes! Too bad the work invested in its construction with so many sacrifices!
Thanks for the video. This rail line was precarious from the day it was built. There's been several attempts to revive it over the years that never succeeded. The geology is horrible crumbly rock. Lots of rock slide areas. I laughed at the part that said glaciers stacked those rocks. Glaciers never made it that far south, but maybe they didn't know that back in the 1920s.
Well, you're wrong. I suppose if you isolate the idea of glaciers being miles thick ice sheets covering the higher latitudes of the North American land mass during the last ice age and the Last Glacial Maximum then yes. Those glaciers did not extend that far south. However, of you widen your gaze and accept that glaciers can occur within mountain ranges during long periods of global cooling, you'd understand that there was in fact glacial activity in the San Francisco Mountains of Arizona. There was even a shallow sea. There was even an ice sheet defined as a glacier in 2008 in Texas. So is it so hard to understand that glacial melts and global floodings between ice ages could cause such events? Especially when experts in geology are stating it in a preserved documentary film regardless of when it was made. 1920 was only 123 years ago. Geology was an advanced science that was 1400 years old by then.
@@mattmarzula Dude, nothing you said has anything to do with the Jacumba Mountains area where this was filmed. Lots of things geologists believed 123 years ago have since been proven wrong.
Look how slow tha thting is going. And there is like no air conditioning going through hot Arizona. Wow people were a different kind of tough back then.
The Carrizo George is in California, and most of this part of the railroad was about 3/4 of a mile above sea level, so it isn't as bad as Southern Arizona. In fact in winter it can snow. Also, while they proudly stated that "the roadbed is as wide as a city street", and that was in some cases true, it was in general a turning, twisting stretch of track, and anything over about 10 or 20 MPH would have been suicidal. Likely the train ran between 40 and 60 MPH in the lowlands. Also, the windows on railroad cars opened in those days, so everyone would have had the windows open if there wasn't too much dust, dirt, and coal embers blowing in the wind.
Automobiles also had no 'air conditioning' then, nor did homes. Air Conditioning at that time and place was a luxury enjoyed almost exclusively in hotels and theaters.
Granted, I'm spoiled but when we were young, we drove or rode around in hotrods with no AC. As long as you are moving, it's fine. Now I have been in Yuma when it was 110 at 10pm and wondered how people actually live there! In CA, it is possible to not need AC if you drive to work in the AM and leave after Sunset!
