City of Industry Yard, From the Air - April 1972

SP City of Industry Yard, April 1972

West end of SP City of Industry Yard.

I had a friend in high school who was getting his pilot license.  An ambitious young lad, he later became a corporate pilot.  I ponied up about $15 to help defray the cost of a Cessna 150 rental, so he could accumulate some flight time. We took off out of Chino Airport on an April afternoon after school, and headed west.  Naturally I requested that we follow the railroad tracks.  The two photos above give an excellent overview of Southern Pacific's little vest pocket humpyard. In the top photo, the shiny ribbon is San Jose Creek. On the right side along the mainline, Valley Blvd. Near the top of the photo you can see where Valley Blvd. diverges from its original alignment thru downtown La Puente, and crosses over the SP via an overpass. From left to right are the C-Yard, made up of the PFE maintenance facility, and the departure yard for the haulers. In the middle is the B-Yard, or Bowl. On the right along the mainline is the A-Yard, which was used for set-outs and pickups. The bottom photo shows the interesting arrangement of tracks at the west end  of the yard.  In the lower right, Valley Blvd. crosses over the small engine facilty and yard office area.  Idle C415s can be seen.  At the lower left in the A-Yard there is a set of power from the Marne Turn, one of the transfer jobs from Taylor. The consist is two passenger Fs and a Geep. The SP used  consists of passenger power on layover on these trains occasionally. To the south ( top of the bottom photo,) is the Union Pacific mainline with the SP connecting track to Puente Jct. Here began trackage rights on the UP to Bartolo, where SP diverged to run down the east bank of the San Gabriel River to Los Nietos.

Here is what the yard looks like today from Google Maps. An intermodal facility occupies the old C-Yard, and of course, its all the UP now.

View Larger Map

SP City of Industry Yard, working the Bowl, 1970