Location / Name:
San Diego CA, San Diego County (2nd most populous in CA, 5th most in the U.S. (Wikipedia: 2020 Census))
What's Here:
San Diego Trolley (Light Rail)
Amtrak
Coaster
BNSF San Diego Subdivision
San Diego & Imperial Valley Railroad
San Diego Model RR Museum
Balboa Park Miniature Railroad
Old Town Model Railroad Depot
Pacific Southwest Railway Museum - La Mesa
Grossmont Central RR (Model Railroad)
Nearby:
Sprinter light rail system, Oceanside to Escondido CA
Escondido History Center (Depot/passenger car) Escondido CA
the Poway-Midland Railroad (Narrow gauge railroad) Poway CA
Pacific Southwest Railway Museum - La Mesa
Other cool attractions:
San Diego Zoo / Balboa Park
Legoland (north of town)
Access by train/transit:
Amtrak and the Coaster can be caught at:
- The Santa Fe Depot station on the Blue Line,
- One stop away from the Orange and Blue line's America Plaza station,
- The Old Town Transit Center (TC) station, end terminus of the Blue and Green lines.
Individual sights will mention if there is a transit or train connection nearby.
The Scoop:
As you saw in the list above of "what's here", there is plenty for the
railfan to experience if you're into "it all"....
♦ If your into freights, you have the BNSF
coming down from LA and serving the Port of San Diego, and the San Diego & Imperial
Valley RR which heads south to the border.
♦ If you like passenger trains, you have
Amtrak and the regional commuter line
Coaster - which runs up the coast about 35 miles to Oceanside
and has eight stations, four of which are shared with Amtrak.
♦ Into transit? You have the oldest "new" light rail system in the U.S.
-
the San Diego Trolley. The Trolley
is a 65 mile double-tracked system with 62 stations. About 35
miles north is the Sprinter light rail
system between Oceanside and Escondido - a single line 22 mile system.
♦ For model trains, check out one the area's model railroad clubs
like the San Diego Model RR Museum
or the Grossmont Central RR.
♦ If your into railroad museums, there is the
Pacific Southwest Railway Museum 55 miles east in Campo, and they have a
small display in La Mesa centered around the old La Mesa Depot. The 55 mile drive is
WELL worth it if you're visiting San Diego - my wife and I visited there and even
SHE was impressed! :-) 20 miles NE of San Diego, off the I-15, is the
Poway Midland RR, which runs a narrow gauge
operation with steam and speeder rides.
♦ Do you like train stations/depots? According to the San Diego
History dot Org page, there are still 18 depots remaining in the San Diego area.
♦ Almost all of us love Lego's, and they have their own amusement park
located about 35 miles north of San Diego called
Legoland. Everything here is either made out of Lego's, or Lego
themed, such as the hotel!
♦ Another fun way to travel to the main tourist areas of San Diego is
on an Old Town Trolley Tour. The
Trolley (a bus that looks like a trolley) stops at 11
places including Old Town, Seaport Village, Gaslamp Quarter, Coronado,
Little Italy and Balboa Park. You can either ride on the full two-hour
narrated historic tour, or hop on and off at different stops throughout the day.
♦ San Diego is filled to the brim with places to visit and see, if you have the time and the inclination.
Balboa Park is one of them, and as already mentioned, there are
several train attractions there, as well as the San Diego Zoo. Enjoy your
visit here.
Acknowledgements:
Tim Vermande
kitmasterbloke
Balboa Park
John Fry
Ron Reiring
Mike M.
Courtney W.
Google Maps
Open Street Map
Open Railway Map
Bing Maps
Wikipedia
The Santa Fe Depot is located in downtown San Diego at Kettner and Broadway.
It is the main hub for Amtrak and the Coaster commuter rail, with train
service from downtown San Diego to Oceanside and beyond. There are also
plenty of connecting services from the Oceanside station, including the
SPRINTER light rail that travels east to Escondido. Amtrak's Pacific
Surfliner will take you along the beautiful coastline from San Diego
to Solana Beach and Oceanside, and onward to Anaheim, Los Angeles,
Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and more destinations.
The most well known of the rail services in San Diego is probably the
San Diego Trolley - well known for their bright
red trolley cars. The system is operated by the Metropolitan Transportation
System, or simply, MTS.
The San Diego system currently operates three lines,
Blue, Green, and Orange. The Blue line was the first of these to open July
26th, 1981, making it one of the older light rail lines to be put into service.
The system has 53 stations. The Orange line was opened in 1986,
and the Green line opened in 2005. The three lines are supplemented by the Silver line, which
runs on Holidays and Weekends, and the Special Event line, which operates when
they are having something going on at Qualcomm Stadium. Service to the
stadium was initiated in 2005 and has 15 stops. Silver line service was
started in 2011, and includes ten stops on it's route on the downtown loop.
The original section was known as the South
Line, and went from the Santa Fe Depot
down to the border. It is now part of the Blue line.
The Blue Line operates over track owned by the San Diego
and Imperial Valley Railroad Company, which connects with BNSF in San Diego, the
UP to the east in Plaster City (off I-8), and Ferromex in San Ysidro/Tijuana.
From Wikipedia: The San Diego and Imperial Valley Railroad (SD&IV) (reporting mark SDIY) is a class
III railroad operating freight rail service in the San Diego area, providing service
to customers in the region and moving railcars between the end of the BNSF Railway
in Downtown San Diego and the Mexico–United States border in San Ysidro. The
railroad has exclusive trackage rights to operate over tracks of the San Diego
and Arizona Eastern Railway, a subsidiary of the Metropolitan Transit System,
the regional public transit service provider. Tracks are shared with the San
Diego Trolley, another subsidiary of the Metropolitan Transit System, and
freight trains are only operated at night when passenger service is not in
operation. The San Diego & Imperial Valley Railroad was established in
October 1984 and is owned and operated by Genesee & Wyoming, a holding
company that operates more than 100 shortline railroads like the SD&IV. end Wiki
From 2004 Headlights: Nighttime Freight Service: Among many distinctions,
San Diego Trolley was the first new LRT system to operate both LRT service
and nighttime freight service through a temporal separation arrangement.
The entire right-of-way is owned by MTS through a Nevada Corporation,
the San Diego Arizona Eastern Railway Corporation. Of the
entire 108-mile right-of-way purchased from the Southern
Pacific Railroad in 1979, 30.5 miles of the line south and east of
the 12th & Imperial complex represent joint-service territory.
Since 1982, freight service has shared the route at night after San
Diego Trolley service ends. Freight service is currently leased to
RailAmerica’s (now Genesee & Wyoming) San Diego and
Imperial Valley Railroad (SD&IV). end Headlights
GPS Coordinates: 32.73126, -117.14862
1649 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101 (In Balboa Park)
619-696-0199 https://www.sdmrm.org/
The San Diego Model RR Museum and the Balboa Park Miniature Train are very
close to each other in Balboa Park. The kid-friendly museum features many
working scale models of California rail lines & landscapes. The Museum is located inside the
Casa de Balboa Building on the lower level and features over 27,000 square feet of trains,
trestles, and tracks! They share a parking lot with the Fleet Science Center.
Major cross street is Park Blvd and Space Theater Way. Admission is charged.
The Balboa Park Miniature Train is the perfect ride for
children ages 0-7. The train takes passengers on a half-
mile / 3-minute ride through four acres of Balboa Park. The train
station is located outside the Zoo's exit. The train is a
model G16 - now a rare antique with as few as fifty
currently remaining. Train tickets are $3 for ages 1
and older; children younger than age 1 are free. Ages
5 and younger must ride with a paying adult.
GPS Coordinates: 32.75182, -117.19364
2415 San Diego Ave, Suite 107, San Diego CA 92110
619-299-9015
Adults: $8, Kids: $5, Seniors: $7
https://www.oldtowntrains.com/visit/
This is a combination model railroad museum and hobby shop, privately owned.....
History of the shop is on the link above.
Just a small portion of what they have in Campo CA, where their
main facility is located - a pleasant fifty-mile drive east of
downtown San Diego. Over eighty major pieces of railroad equipment,
including steam and diesel locomotives, passenger cars,
freight cars and cabooses are on display there.
The La Mesa Depot Museum is open for tours on Saturday afternoons
from 1PM to 4PM. There is no fee to visit the museum. Visitors
can inspect the steam locomotive and string of freight cars on
the nearby track and pass through the ticket/waiting area and
view the telegrapher’s station and a small exhibit area in the
baggage room. This building and its past are a fascinating look
at a bit of small-town railroading from yesteryear and its
importance to the community it served.
Grossmont Central Railroad model train display operated by the San Diego
S-Gaugers, a 501C-3 nonprofit organization, is open to public viewing
on Tuesdays and Saturdays from noon until 6:00 pm. See number 304 on
the mall map. Five different layouts are on display. The three window
layouts may be operated 24-7 by pressing door bell buttons on the windows
on either side of the entrance. The window layouts run for two minutes
upon button activation. The narrow gauge layout is a representation of
a typical logging operation in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the
1950’s. Walking around the main layout takes you through a military air
museum, a mountain scene, a lumber yard, dairy farm, Green Acres,
Jurassic Park, a winery with vineyard and an outdoor eating area.
Then you pass by the switching yard and end up at the orange/lemon grove.
Although not in the San Diego metro area, you may want to take the drive while
you're taking pictures of the Sprinter light rail system and check out the depot.
About the Train Depot & Train Car: The Santa Fe Depot is one of the oldest buildings
in the city. It was originally located on West Grand between Quince and Spruce
and was the hub of the community for decades. Moved to this location in 1984,
the Depot is now our main museum, which includes the railroad office and waiting
room as well as displays of Native American heritage, early Escondido agriculture,
and the development of Escondido as a town. The railroad car, #92, was built by
the Pullman Company in the 1920s. The interior has been restored to include
passenger seats and a mailroom, but the main display is an HO scale model
railroad that depicts the original 22-mile route from Oceanside to Escondido.
The Train Depot is open to tour at no charge on Saturdays 1-4:00 pm.
The site also contains the oldest library of Escondido, a blacksmith shop, and a
Victorian era house.
Poway-Midland Railroad Volunteers, Inc. was founded on February 13, 1991.
The Poway-Midland Railroad is a full-size, narrow-gauge railroad in
Old Poway Park which carries passengers aboard vintage and antique
railroad equipment. The railroad is owned by the City of Poway, and
operated by the Poway Midland Railroad Volunteers, is a 501 (c) 3
corporation that exists on passenger ticket fares and donations.
Through the restoration, preservation, and operation of vintage
railroad equipment, the Volunteers are able to offer the community
and visitors alike with a vintage train ride around the park, and
through interpretation, provide educational programs (such as
Operation Lifesaver) as well.
I love trains, and I love signals. I am not an expert. My webpages reflect what I find on the topic of the page. This is something I have fun with while
trying to help others.
Please Note: Since the main focus of my two websites is railroad signals, the railfan guides are oriented towards the signal fan being able to locate them.
For those of you into the modeling aspect of our hobby, my
indexa page has a list of almost everything railroad oriented
I can think of to provide you with at least a few pictures to help you detail your pike.
If this is a railfan page, every effort has been made to make sure that the information contained on this map and in this railfan guide is correct. Once in a while,
an error may creep in :-)
My philosophy: Pictures and maps are worth a thousand words, especially for railfanning. Text descriptions only get you so far, especially if you get lost or
disoriented. Take along good maps.... a GPS is OK to get somewhere, but maps are still better if you get lost! I belong to AAA, which allows you to get
local maps for free when you visit the local branches. ADC puts out a nice series of county maps for the Washington DC area, but their state maps do not have the
railroads on them. If you can find em, I like the National Geographic map book of the U.S..... good, clear, and concise graphics, and they do a really good job
of showing you where tourist type attractions are, although they too lack the railroads. Other notes about specific areas will show up on that page if known.
Aerial shots were taken from either Google or Bing Maps as noted. Screen captures are made
with Snagit, a Techsmith product... a great tool if you have never used it!
By the way, floobydust is a term I picked up 30-40 years ago from a National Semiconductor data book, and means miscellaneous
and/or other stuff.
Pictures and additional information is always needed if anyone feels inclined to take 'em, send 'em, and share 'em, or if you have something to add or correct.... credit
is always given! Please be NICE!!! Contact info is here
Beware: If used as a source, ANYTHING from Wikipedia must be treated as being possibly inaccurate, wrong, or not true.
Santa Fe Depot
The San Diego Trolley
San Diego & Imperial Valley RR
kitmasterbloke/via Wikipedia
Coaster Regional Rail Service
San Diego Model RR Museum
Balboa Park Miniature Railroad
Balboa Park
Balboa Park
John Fry
afar.com
Old Town Model Railroad Depot
Pacific Southwest Railway Museum
Grossmont Central Railroad
BNSF
National City Depot & the San Diego Electric Railway
3 photos by Courtney W., 2019
Mike M., 2018
Escondido History Park
Ron Reiring, 2015
coolsandiegosights.com
the Poway Midland RR
Legoland