Hardcover with dust jacket, 584 pages, 8.5 x 11 x 3 in. 1,043 photographs (about 40% color), 76 maps, Bibliography and Index.
John Signor is a great author on United States railroad subjects and combined with his illustrator skills, this is a great book to have in your library - all 6+ lbs. of it!
This book is filled with so much information on Southern Pacific's Los Angeles Division. Maps, diagrams of yards, lists of local freights, tonnage diagrams, passenger trains and schedules, through freight times and names, historical B&W photographs, Color photographs of the late steam era up the the late 1980s and a short discussion of SP's electrification study and so much more!
From the first stirring of a Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad locomotive in January 1869, to the merger with Union Pacific on September 11, 1996, Southern Pacific's Los Angeles Division in all of its manifestations was an engine of growth and prosperity in Southern California. It employed many thousands over the years in its offices, shops and trains. It brought settlers west, established towns, brought war workers in and sent the troops home.
Much has been written about the Southern Pacific and its subsidiaries in the Southland. This volume was conceived to augment these works by tracing the long and involved operating history of the Southern Pacific as it first helped to create Southern California, then later adapted to cope with its explosive growth.
Accompanying the text are over 1,000 photographs-most never published, including 456 in color plus timetables and other ephemera, and 76 maps, many of which are rendered in the author's unique "bird's eye view" style.
With Los Angeles as a destination of significance from the beginning, the author has been able to draw from a wealth of historic material on the subject, preserved by the railway itself, official repositories, interested employees and other individuals which includes photographs, firsthand experiences and the day-to-day paperwork that documented how SP operated in Southern California. Southern Pacific's Los Angeles Division is sure to find a place on the book shelves of those interested in the SP, or the history of Southern California as a whole.
Contents:
Introduction, pp. 6-10,
Early Days, 1869-1900, pp. 11-74,
Expansion, 1900-1929, pp. 75-174,
Depression and War, 1929-1945, pp. 175-286,
Postwar, 1946-1970, pp. 287-522,
Retrenchment, 1970-1996, pp. 523-576,
Epilogue, pg. 577,
Bibliography, pp. 578-579,
Index, pp. 580-584.
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