Cajon Pass, The Gateway to LA

SKU: DVD-PNX-VR013
(7 customer reviews)

$24.95

Cajon Pass in 1987 is a very different place than it is now. In many ways more exciting for railfans, with helpers, cabooses and pre-merger railroads.

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Producer

Pentrex

Run Time

58 minutes

Narration

Yes

Shrink Wrap

Yes, Brand New

Technical Details

No Region Code, NTSC

Cajon Pass in 1987 is a very different place than it is now. In many ways more exciting for railfans. Many trains have a caboose at the end…and every railroad uses helpers. There is no new BNSF triple track and the railroads are all pre-merger and independant at this time. Watch the Santa Fe, Union Pacific and Southern Pacific (and Amtrak) push trains over the mountain.

Highlights of this show include:

  • Watch as the ATSF, S.P. and U.P. Railroads challenge the brutal grades of Cajon Pass.
  • See the Union Pacific’s DDA40X round Sullivan’s Curve.
  • Experience spectacular runbys with enormous hill pulling power.
  • PLUS – Rare footage of the building of Southern Pacific’s massive Colton Yard.

7 reviews for Cajon Pass, The Gateway to LA

  1. Matt

    DD40’s are all trailing in this program. It’s not bad but there are other Cajon Pass DVD’s that are much better. Worth $25? Na.

  2. Dan

    The railroads have always found ways to meet the challenges of Cajon Pass, and while the landscape has changed very little over the years, the railroading has changed significantly. The footage is surprisingly good, especially considering that it’s now well over 30 years old. This is a “must have” addition to any railfan video library, and a fascinating contrast when watched back-to-back with one of the many programs of “contemporary” railroading on Cajon.

  3. Curtis Watson

    Some of the last years of “classic” railroading have been captured very well here. Love the Santa Fe, love the Cabooses, love the “Centennial” diesel (though I wish there had been more of it). If late-80s railroading is your thing, you’ll really enjoy this one!

  4. collinvarney24

    Awesome footage of Southern pacific, Union pacific and Santa Fe freight battling the grade of Cajon Pass, I even liked the Amtrak desert wind with it’s F40PH locomotives. Very cool to watch.

  5. Lloyd

    Very impressive. There are lots of videos on Cajon Pass by various producers. Yet, each one seems to add something that the others did not. This one is no different with the fallen flags…. being that the show was originally produced in the mid 1980’s, there is a great variety of the older power and fallen flags. Well done, worth owning.

  6. transitionalman

    LOVED THIS!!!! My only “gripe” is this is NOT 1987, it’s probably 1984. Aside from the opening portion that shows SPs intermodal facilities this is ALL early 1980s:

    1) EVERY train has a caboose
    2) Amtrak F40PHs are in Phase II
    3) Not a single Kodachrome Diesel in the many program: all pure Santa Fe blue/yellow and SP scarlet and gray with the full light packages
    4) One double stack was shown and it was APL, which began in 1984
    5) LOTS of 40 foot trailers on pure piggyback trains with no fuel Fowler’s on the Santa Fe

    Other nice catches:
    1) Trailing Centennial on a UP train
    2) CF7s on a Santa Fe train
    3) UP Stock Car block
    4) DRGW powered Kaiser coal train

    A GREAT ADDITION if you want to see a Cajon Pass before graffiti and one double stack train after another!!!

  7. rickyfreni

    With a great variety of Diesels on Santa Fe, Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, & even Amtrak’s Southwest chief & since dis-continued dessert wind, as well as some helicopter footage from the sky & a brief tour of the Taylor Yard where containers are loaded on freight cars, plus other road names like the Rio Grande for example, this is what SoCal Railroading in the 80s are like before today’s technology. Oh & one other thing: the music is interesting to hear as well as some well done narration from Donald Harris. Not to mention vintage films of the construction of West Colton Yard with some help from Caterpillar machines & how rail is welded & moved to the roadbed.

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