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Beginning of the Rails
under the banner of the Los Angeles & San Pedro
Condensed from a forthcoming book by Railroad. They had laid three miles of track, hauled in
Gerald M Best, noted railroad historian. from the pier with drayhorses, before the San Gabriel and
three flat cars arrived. (The San Gabriel was reported to
have fallen off the Alameda wharf the year before, and
Railroad fever gripped the Nation through the last half had been raised and repaired. It was given to constant
of the nineteenth century. A new world had been born. breakdowns.) The tracks reached halfway from the
For the first time in the long history of mankind, he and harbor to Los Angeles when word came that the Union
his goods could be transported across land at a speed Pacific and Central Pacific had ;a"ined their
faster than a galloping horse. People could now move transcontinental tracks at Promontory Point, Utah. Four
over great distances in comfort; goods could be moved in months later, September 9, 1869, the tracks were
quantity over those same distances. complete. The eight-wheeled Schenectady engines
Communities competed wildly for rail service; the men which had been ordered had not arrived, so the little
who laid the rails held the reins of political and economic four-wheel San Gabriel did all the railroad's passenger
power. For a while it appeared that the railroad, moving and freight hauling - with frequent time out for
south from San Francisco toward the Colorado river, breakdowns - until the locomotive Los Angeles was
would bypass the farming town of Los Angeles, "Queen landed, six weeks later, after a seven months' voyage
of the Cow Counties." around the Horn.
This tiny engine, christened the San Gabriel, was
shipped by water from San Francisco to General Phineas
Banning, who had long operated mule and wagon trains
from the harbor at Wilmington to Fort T ejon, on the crest
of the Tehachapi mountains. Banning and a partner
started to build a railroad from the harbor to the city, The engine San Gabriel.
The Los Angeles engine to Lang
Gerald M. Best collection
