Wrightwood resident Bill Kane and the "Wrightwood Representative"
Since 1919, Wrightwood had progressed, but who would ever believed that in 1963, they would finally get a railroad in town. The Train, a small replica of a Santa Fe Steam locomotive, arrived at Wrightwood School-its new train depot. Wrightwood residents Bill and Mary Kane came across the "iron horse" in San Bernardino. After a little dealing back and forth they finally got their train, and after a lot of modifications to it, they brought it home. Complete with cowcatcher, steam stack and brass bell, the locomotive called "The Wrightwood Representative" of the Santa Fe Railroad had a new home. For years, the train was featured at PTA carnivals, Independence Day celebrations and transporting "tourists" during the old Mountaineer Days. Its main passengers were the kids. No track was required, just a good set of truck tires. But that doesn't mean that a train (of sorts) did not travel the paved mountain roads of downtown Wrightwood. The Wrightwood Representative mainly had its "station" at the Wrightwood School. With a little child-like imagination, one might say that a train, and not the trackless trolley type, made its debut in town over 44 years ago.
The above subscription notice surely looked like a ticket stub for the "station". Ticket "no. 23374 was ready to provide the reader a good ride.
Through the years there have been some that speculated that the "train track" in front of present day "Swarthout Station & Cajon Valley Railroad Station" on the corner of Cedar and Evergreen, was traces of an actual train line. It was four years in the planning stages this railroad station of sorts was built in Wrightwood. From its unique shape and down to its furnishings inside, it sure looked like the genuine article. Was it in preparation for a railroad going through town? Probably not, after all it was 1974 and most of the town was built up. To build a railroad station, and the track to go with it, many buildings would have to be torn down to make room. And even though the town was a couple of miles long, it was only a mile wide. The good old Swarthout Valley was big...just not that big. It would have made for a real boring train ride. You couldn't turn around in the narrow valley, so naturally it would be a tedious haul engineering a train to the end of the canyon, then having to back all the way down to Cajon Pass...go up again, then back down again. Imagine doing that over and over again. At least the engineer could put a joyful twist in the journey and play with the train whistle now and then
This unique station was called the S&CVRR Station, or the Swarthout and Cajon Valley Railroad Station. It was the new home of the Wrightwood Mountaineer newspaper that was owned and operated by long time resident Tom Pinard. As shown in the sketch rendered by Gene Knight, painstaking detail went in to make sure it looked like a bonafide railroad station. After all, there were rumors about a trackless trolley and a small train going through decades earlier.
Gene Knight had a keen interest in trains, which revealed itself on paper via his talented drafting pencil. Additional research was done by former resident J.J. "Smokey" Barton, while the architect and engineering responsibilities was carried out by Hans Steinmann of King, Benioff, Steinmann and King Consulting Engineers. With 800 square feet of main room to operation the newspapers, there was an addition 800 square feet for storage. Like a railroad station in a modern 19th century city, you walked through heavy oak double action swinging door into a lobby with a genuine wire cage ticket window. The newspaper subscription form even looked like an actual train ticket. Perhaps it was in a way, for many of us enjoyed the ride as Tom Pinard ran the Mountaineer for thirty years before he retired and sold it. The S&CVRR Station still sits in all its glory at the corner of Evergreen and Cedar Streets. Owned by local resident Hank Hallmark, he has kept it in tip top shape. The two sections of rail, 1320 pounds of steel, still lays embedded in the pavement in front of the railroad station. Interesting enough they point east and west, the same direction the trackless trolley would had traveled, had it ever reached its finally designation.
Oh, and about the genuine, bonafide train coming to Wrightwood? Well, it ain't made it...yet.
Resources:
Sumner Wright's Letters-February 10, 1912-Wrightwood Historical Museum files
Railroading Through the Cajon Pass, by Chard Walker; renowned author of Cajon Pass: Rail Passage to the Pacific and
Cajon;: A pictorial Album-San Bernardino to Victorville
Summary of the California -Pacific Investment Company-stored in the California Room, San Bernardino Public Library, San Bernardino:
The Electric Railway Historical Association of southern California, a guide to the electric heritage of the L.A. region
Wrightwood Mountaineer, August 22, 1974, vol xiii no. 51; S&CVRR Station Lives)
Robert Clyde, Johnny & Roselyn Johnson-oral history (Robert Clyde audio interview conducted by John Lenau and Joyce Floyd, on file at Wrightwood Historical Musuem)
Los Angeles History of Trackless Trolleys-"Line planned ca. 1911 by Lone Pine Utilities Company, an affiliate of Laurel Canyon Utilities Company. Planned to connect Grava railway station (or halt) to Wrightwood. A contemporary account in a local newspaper states that construction was started but not completed."
