Goodby, Pasadena : Desert Wind Whistles Into Railroad History

When the Southwest Chief rumbles into Pasadena every morning at 7, a lone ticket agent, who often has just unlocked the station doors, doubles as baggage handler for a few passengers. At 8:36 every night, right after the train heads back for Chicago, the doors are locked.

That’s all the railway business there is for the classic old passenger depot on south Raymond Avenue now that the Desert Wind, the other Amtrak train that carries passengers between Los Angeles and Chicago, no longer stops in Pasadena.

The same is true at the far eastern end of the San Gabriel Valley, at the Garvey Avenue station in Pomona, which is on the same rail line.

Since Sunday, the Desert Wind has been bypassing Pasadena and Pomona, traveling instead through Fullerton on its trips east and west. The Southwest Chief is now the only train that stops at the stations in Pasadena and Pomona.

“Railroad stations used to be filled with action. Now they are like tombs,” said Joseph Stoddard, who was among about 30 railroad buffs who gathered in Pasadena last Saturday to say goodby to the Desert Wind on its last stop.

Some Amtrak employees and many of the rail fans who spent the afternoon photographing and mourning the passing of the Desert Wind believe that its rerouting signals the same destiny for the Southwest Chief, and perhaps oblivion for the two depots.

Amtrak spokesmen deny that they have any plans to change the route of the only remaining passenger train that stops at Pasadena and Pomona along its three-day journey between Los Angeles and Chicago.

“The reason for rerouting the Desert Wind was purely operational, to make better connections with Chicago,” said Arthur Lloyd, Amtrak’s West Coast public information officer.

Lloyd said it was necessary to start the Desert Wind 45 minutes earlier in both Chicago and Los Angeles so that it could be timed to meet transferring passengers on other trains in the Midwest. The route through Fullerton could be used for the earlier starting times, but the line that runs through Pasadena and Pomona could not accommodate the change, Lloyd said.

“Amtrak has no intention of doing anything with the Pasadena and Pomona stations or with the Southwest Chief,” Lloyd said.

Tony Mastrangelo, manager of stations in Los Angeles, agreed that he has “no indication that the Southwest Chief will be rerouted.

I’ve heard nothing about closing the stations.”

Lloyd and Mastrangelo said that before the Desert Wind began serving Pasadena and Pomona about five years ago, the Southwest Chief had been Amtrak’s only passenger train in the San Gabriel Valley. “As far as I know, it will continue,” he said.

But Robert Greubel, a 12-year Amtrak employee who is one of the ticket clerks in Pasadena, believes that the stations may be phased out as an economy move.

“Amtrak is reducing personnel, and rerouting the last train and closing these stations would eliminate six positions,” Greubel said. “It might be seen as a logical next move.”

Greubel and Harold Tyree, a ticket agent in Pomona, said that about 20 passengers a day board the Southwest Chief at each stop, the same number that daily boarded the Desert Wind. Most are eastbound, many headed for Las Vegas. Fewer than 10 debark en route to Los Angeles, the agents said.

Fans Brought Cameras

Early Saturday afternoon when the Desert Wind arrived from Chicago, and an hour later when it headed east, about 30 fans were at both stations with still and video cameras and with little children who came to wave. Many deplored the loss and predicted that the two stations will soon close.

Only one passenger got off the westbound train; Eleanor Barbour of Glendale said the train’s four passenger cars were only partly filled.

The nine who boarded the eastbound train an hour later included a family returning to their home in Rock Springs, Wyo., after vacationing at Disneyland, an elderly woman returning to her home in Omaha after a visit in La Canada Flintridge, and Dave and Colleen Harvel of Temple City and their two tiny children, who were en route to Las Vegas.

“We hope you enjoy your trip on the last Desert Wind in Pasadena,” a ticket agent called out on the loudspeaker.

“These vestiges of Pasadena history are being eliminated,” said Mark Stockwell, who said he bid the same kind of sentimental farewell to the Huntington Sheraton hotel, whose 81-year-old main building was closed last October.

Tried to Match Photo

“I have a real cool photo of the Super Chief coming into this station for the first time in the 1930s, with the Green Hotel in the background,” said Stoddard as he attempted a similar photo of the Desert Wind.

“I love the idea of riding the rails, and I can remember when stations like this were filled the way airports are now,” Stoddard said.

Herb Iske, secretary of the 900-member Pacific Railroad Society, said, “The fact that the Desert Wind is not going through here any more is sad, historically. It is being rerouted on what was once a freight route that was built in 1888 to take the pressure off this route.”

Iske said Pacific Railroad Society members’ frequent excursions show that there is “a lack of public interest in trains. There’s so much emphasis on how fast people can travel now, and a failure to appreciate the comfort and convenience of trains.”

Recorded on Video

Another rail fan on hand Saturday was Mark Melhorn of Pasadena, who brought his 2-year-old son, John, for a last look at the Desert Wind. A member of the National Model Railroad Assn. and the National Railroad Historical Society, Melhorn used a video camera to record what he called a historical event.

“I’d like to see trains stay in general,” Melhorn said. “This is the only country in the world that doesn’t subsidize trains. It’s true that the government runs Amtrak, but Congress keeps cutting funds.”

The Pasadena depot was built by Santa Fe Railway in 1935, using some of the area’s noted ceramic tiles, heavy hand-hewn beams in the ceilings and marble walls in the restrooms. Despite a leaking roof and peeling paint, it is otherwise well maintained and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Before World War II, the station was a popular site for photographing movie stars as they arrived from the East. A Santa Fe employee theorized that they could get more media attention in the small station than they could by arriving in the huge Union Station in downtown Los Angeles.

Pomona Station Remodeled

The Pomona station was built in 1939 and was completely remodeled in 1965, gaining space for waiting passengers but losing its historical value in the process. Another train, the Sunset Limited, stops in Pomona three times a week at the former Southern Pacific station about two miles from the Garey Avenue depot.

Tom Buckley, spokesman for Santa Fe, said that for several decades both stations handled hundreds of passengers daily for the Super Chief, the Chief and the El Capitan. He said that as air travel increased, rail traffic declined.

Iske, a serious student of railroad history, said the first train from Los Angeles arrived in Pasadena on Sept. 16, 1885, on what was then the San Gabriel Valley Railroad.

“At first it ended here, but they kept expanding and built all the way to Mud Springs. That’s San Dimas now,” Iske said. There, the San Gabriel Valley Railroad met the westbound tracks of another small railroad.

“We’re marking the 100th anniversary of trains coming through here and the 50th anniversary of the station,” Iske said.