Santa Fe Los Angeles Division

Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society, hardcover with jacket, 11 x 8.5 x 1 in., color, B&W photographs and illustrations. The AT&SF Railway and it predecessor companies was active in Southern California for 116 years. Much has been written about the Santa Fe in this region of mountains, dessert and sea, its vast orange groves and perpetual spring. Under the all-encompassing title of Santa Fe's Los Angeles Division, this Volume was conceived to augment these works by tracing the long and involved operating history of the Santa Fe Railway as it first helped to create Southern California, then later adapted to cope with its explosive growth. Accompanying the text are over 1000 photographs - 288 in color - timetables and other ephemera, and over 60 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, author Signor 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 include photographs, first hand experiences of employees and the day-to-day paperwork that documented how the Santa Fe Railway operated in all its distinctive aspects in Southern California. Contents: Introduction, Acknowledgements, pp. 6—10 Beginnings 1879-1900, pp. 11—70 Expansion 1900-1929, pp. 71—160 Challenges of the 'Thirties and 'Forties, pp. 161—326 Postwar Expansion, pp. 327—546 The Modern Era, pp. 547—574 Epilogue, Bibliography, Index, pp. 575—584. This is a very high-quality publication comparable to the Signature Press titles on Southern Pacific divisions.…