For more than a century, the mighty...

For more than a century, the mighty transcontinental railroads that helped build the West have been a mighty force in Los Angeles politics.

By 1886, they were bringing a thousand people a month into Los Angeles, transforming it into a modern megalopolis.

After World War II, the railroads fell victim to the trucking industry as well as the autos and airplanes that became the preferred mode of transportation for most people. Private railroads left the passenger business in 1971, turning it over to Amtrak.

Since the first station opened in 1869, 195 railroad companies have incorporated in the county. Some were only railroads on paper and others were quickly swallowed up by the bigger ones. Here is a short history.

1. SALT LAKE RAILROAD/ UNION PACIFIC

General Phineas Banning helped to build the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad, the city’s first means of rail transportation, in 1869. Banning’s railroad and its station at Alameda and Commercial streets were eventually handed over to Southern Pacific to entice the Great Iron Horse into Los Angeles. For about 10 years around the turn of the century, Southern Pacific and Union Pacific operated as one railroad. A fire destroyed the Downtown station in 1924, sending the Union Pacific’s trains to the Southern Pacific’s Central Station at 5th Street and Central Avenue.

2. CENTRAL PACIFIC/ SOUTHERN PACIFIC

For the San Francisco-based Southern Pacific--nicknamed the “Espee”--it all began in 1856, when civil engineer Theodore D. Judah built the 23-mile Sacramento Valley Railroad, the first steam railroad in the Far West.

Backed by merchants who became known as the Big Four, Judah started the Central Pacific. Back then, Leland Stanford was a grocer, Charles Crocker owned a dry-goods store and Mark Hopkins and Collis P. Huntington were partners in a hardware business.

The railroad broke ground for the western end of the transcontinental line in January, 1863. Hoping to expand quickly, in 1865 the Central Pacific bought the Southern Pacific, a small company with intentions of building a railroad from San Francisco to San Diego. The Big Four soon decided they liked the Southern Pacific name better.

It hooked up with the Union Pacific on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Point, Utah, where Stanford drove the fabled golden spike.

In 1872, with Los Angeles developing a reputation as a capital of lawlessness, the Southern Pacific was threatening to build its main line from San Francisco through the Cajon Pass, north of Los Angeles, toward San Bernardino instead of into Los Angeles, bypassing the town--and perhaps dooming it.

Southern Pacific demanded $600,000 from the city in return for coming here, plus control of the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad, the city’s outlet to the sea. After a hard-fought battle, railroad backers won a special election that financed the deal.

More than 4,000 Chinese laborers shoveled and blasted their way over and through the mountains toward the young city. Two crews worked on the San Fernando Tunnel, just south of Newhall, boring a 7,000-foot hole through more than a mile of solid rock at a cost of more than $2 million.

On Sept. 5, 1876, the railroad line linking Los Angeles and San Francisco was completed, with the driving of another golden spike into a railway tie as a thousand spectators and laborers gathered at the now-vanished community of Lang in the Santa Clarita Valley.

The Southern Pacific operated out of three terminals before moving to Union Station in 1939: River Station in what is now Chinatown, the Arcade Depot at 5th Street and Central Avenue and the nearby elaborate Central Station.

3. SANTA FE RAILWAY

The Santa Fe Railway was founded in 1859 by Cyrus K. Holliday as the Atchison & Topeka, but because of the upheaval of the Civil War and other problems, the company laid no track until 1868, by which timed it had added Santa Fe to its name. Holliday’s ambition was to build a railroad that followed the old Santa Fe Trail, which had guided many a wagon train West.

In the 1880s, the Santa Fe battled with the Southern Pacific to gain a foothold in the West. Men working the two railroads reportedly faced off with rifles more than once. The Southern Pacific paid the Santa Fe $500,000 a year to make San Bernardino its terminal point instead of Los Angeles. In 1885, however, the agreement fell apart and the Santa Fe finally completed its first through route by buying a local railroad.

A bitter fare war between the two railroads began, helping bring thousands of settlers--who bought tickets from Kansas City to Los Angeles for a mere $1.

Santa Fe’s La Grande Station opened on July 29, 1893, at 2nd Street and Santa Fe Avenue. The Moorish-style depot cost $50,000 and for 30 years boasted a first-class restaurant, the Harvey House.

Judy Garland immortalized the Santa Fe in the MGM movie “The Harvey Girls,” singing, “Do yuh hear that whistle down the line? I figure that it’s engine No. 49. She’s the only one that’ll sound that way. On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”

The station’s mosque-like domes were removed in 1933 after being damaged in the Long Beach earthquake. The depot closed in 1939 and was razed in 1946.

4. UNION STATION

Named for the uniting of three railroad lines--the Santa Fe, Union Pacific and Southern Pacific--the station was almost a relic from the day it opened in 1939. Although it had been conceived two decades earlier, a bitter struggle between Los Angeles city officials and the railroad commission over the proposed station postponed construction for years.

As Los Angeles builds for the 21st Century, Amtrak, Metro Rail and Metrolink all converge at Union Station, making it once again the Grand Central Station of Los Angeles.