Welcome to Cajonpass.net ore

This website is dedicated to photography of the Cajon pass that starts San Bernardino to Barstow for the BNSF and from West Colton to Phelen on the Union Pacific. The aim of this photographic website is to capture the essence of this natural area as railroad tracks cut through the mountains to reach points east in an endless battle against nature.  Please take the time review the terms and conditions and hope people enjoy this website.

Why did I create this site? In the past I have posted my pictures on many different sites but they get lost in the discussion pages or hard to find in the thousand of postings.  This site uses Photopost where the bulk of my pictures will be housed and it is easier to have built php site.  Not to take away from other great discussion pages this site will not allow outside users to post their pictures.  For links to other sites please click on the links on the left.

Historical facts:

The first railroad through the pass was the California Southern Railroad, a subsidiary of Santa Fe Railway and built in the early 1880’s. Later the tracks were owned by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe with trackage rights granted to the Union Pacific.  The pass starts at 1,073 feet above sea level and reaches an elevation of 3,823 feet in the toughest 25.6 miles of rails.  The ruling grade on the original line is a 3% and a 2.2% grade on the second main line installed in 1913.  The Cajon pass was the only route for the Santa Fe Railway to reach Los Angeles from Barstow and points east which still holds true for the BNSF.  The ruling grade from Summit to Barstow is 1.1%.

The Southern Pacific railroad did not enter The Cajon until 1967 when a new, single-track line from West Colton to Palmdale. This line runs fairly close to the Santa Fe with a ruling grade of 2.2% to the Highland summit. During the failed SPSF merger talks the Southern Pacific built the Kneebrook crossovers.  These crossover was initially not used until the merger between the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific.  A second set of crossover at Summit from the BNSF to the UP. Today the Union Pacific line is used to run trains to Lancaster or to Barstow (then to Yermo).  Weekly a BNSF train will run from Barstow to West Colton using the cross over at summit and vice versa.  The ruling grade from Highland to Phelen is 0.7%.

In 2005 BNSF has started a program to triple track the Cajon Pass from San Bernardino to Summit.  Currently the project is at Kneebrook awaiting further approvals from the Federal government.