Clement Junction, California
Coordinates: 34°00′50″N 118°14′20″W / 34.01389°N 118.23889°W
Clement Junction is an historic railroad junction established in 1876 in Los Angeles County, California, to provide the Port of Los Angeles with its first direct rail access to the US transcontinental railroad network via the Southern Pacific Railroad.
The railroad junction was named for Canadian-born civil engineer and surveyor Lewis Metzler Clement (1837-1914), Chief Assistant Engineer (later Acting Chief Engineer) and Superintendent of Track of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (1862–81).[1] At that location the Southern Pacific Railroad main line (MP 485.4) to Los Angeles via the San Joaquin Valley from Northern California (opened in 1876) joined with the rails of the already existing 22-mile Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad which the SP had acquired in 1874, and thus established a rail link to San Francisco, Sacramento, and the East via the Pacific Railroad (CPRR/UPRR).[2]
Opened in 1869 to provide rail service for the Port of Los Angeles, the LA&SPRR was the first railroad built in Southern California. Now primarily an industrial area, Clement Junction is located approximately three miles due South of Los Angeles City Hall and two miles due East of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Union Pacific Railroad acquired the tracks of the railroad junction (along with its associated freight yard and sidings) in 1996 when it merged with the Southern Pacific Transportation Company, although the former SP Santa Monica Branch, which once connected at the junction, had been abandoned in 1989.[3]
References[edit]
- ↑ LEWIS METZLER CLEMENT: A Pioneer of the Central Pacific Railroad
- ↑ Los Angeles and San Francisco Connected by Rail (From Trail to Rail — A History of the Southern Pacific Company, Chapter XXXI) The Southern Pacific Bulletin, July, 1928
- ↑ Recommendation to Authorize the City Manager to Contract for Consulting Services Related to the Valuation of the SPTC Santa Monica Branch Line Railroad Right-of-Way. Santa Monica City Council Meeting, February 14, 1989 Archived July 23, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
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