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old railroad sign, Goffs, CA; tracks crossing old Route 66, 3 miles east of Ludlow, CA; billboard at Sloan, NV
locomotive in Blue Cut; sign for a missing town in Blue Cut; BNSF locomotive near Amboy, CA
crossing near Goffs, CA; Keslo Depot, Kelso, CA; retired signal at Goffs, CA
"I work for Mr. E. H. Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad..."
— Woodcock, character in the movie
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969),
screenplay by William Golden
In 1881 the second transcontinental railroad was declared complete, but the western end beyond Needles still wasn't done.
The first railroad through the region, the Acheson, Topeka and Santa Fe, took the southern fork, from Needles to Barstow to Mojave, and then to where Tehachapi where it crossed the mountains to Los Angeles going south over the grade with the famous loop. It was completed slowly, in stages.
Meanwhile, the Southern Pacific connected San Bernardino with Barstow. The obvious next step would have been a railroad from Barstow to Salt Lake City through Las Vegas, and such a line — the San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake — was planned and worked on for years, but powerful railroad monopilists, mainly the Huntingtons and E. H. Harraman, struggled to prevent it. At one point two railroad companies were even tearing up each other's newly-constructed track from Barstow to Las Vegas. After the Federal government mediated, a peaceful solution was found, with some shared track, and a rail route on the "northern fork" was completed in 1904. The Salt Lake railroad was acquired by Southern Pacific, but at last two routes into Los Angeles were allowed to co-exist.
The whole amazing story is told by Edward Leo Lyman on his web page, "From The City of Angels to the City of Saints: The Struggle to Build A Railroad from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City" [www.wemweb.com/arduous-road/build_railroad.html].
Both of the railroads are still in heavy use today. A number of "railfan" web sites are devoted to the hobby of train watching in the Mojave desert today, for example:
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Last update 12:54 PM Fri. 27-Feb-2004 by ABS.