Ren's Did You Know ? - SP Derailment - Spadra, California - March 1973

 

Sometime in the wee smalls of March 24, 1973, a Southern Pacific westbound freight was descending the 1%  grade of Pomona Hill, when a broken axle caused a truck to derail and start bouncing on the ties. When the offending car hit the timbers of the Temple Avenue grade crossing,  it pulled it, and the following boxcar and caboose, off of the track, and onto the ground. There were no fatalities. The N&W car on the north side of the track almost made it onto Valley Blvd. Damage to the track was minimal, and the first train to clear was the eastbound MSE (Merchandise Special East,) with U33C 8764. The MSE was the hottest train of the morning rush, and later morphed into the two symbol freights, the LAEST, and LAHOT. In the bottom photo in the backgound is the long gone Quaas Egg Ranch, sandwiched between the tracks, Valley Blvd., and Pomona Blvd. The western Pomona valley was still mostly agricultural then. Spadra was once a stop on the Butterfield Stage, and was the railhead of the building Southern Pacific Sunset Route in 1874.