The UP line continued on down into Fullerton, terminating at the Hunt's cannery that's between Malvern and Commonwealth. At one time, the branch actually crossed the Santa Fe and continued all the way into Anaheim and interchanged with the Santa Ana Branch, but that's been looooong gone. The tracks still physically connect with BNSF, but no interchange ever takes place (to my knowledge).

The SP line continued on into Brea, and was actually part of the Pacific Electric system. Some of the old grade can be seen heading up throught the hills of La Habra. At one time, I believe, SP had surveyed the Brea Canyon with the intent to build a line through there, but it ended up terminating in a Brea industrial park.

The UP merger caused the dual operation of the line to become redundant, and so UP abandoned their section of the branch and pulled up the tracks, probably because their line went over more grade crossings. The SP part of the line continues west toward Los Nietos, which is also the place where all the traffic heading toward the Santa Ana Branch starts out.

The big truss bridge over Wittier Blvd. is quite impressive, and it's the only bridge I know of around here that's lettered for the Salt Lake Route, which was a subsidiary of UP back at the turn of the century (1900). The line went through some very scenic areas of uptown Whittier, and several of the crossings had wig-wag signals (long since removed and/or stolen). I know of very few pictures of trains running over this line, save for a few a friend of mine got in the 1980's. I'm not sure if there was a station in Whittier (I imagine their was, although it may have been PE, not UP), but I do know that the Old Spaghetti Factory, which is next to Fullerton staiton, is the former UP Fullerton station when they operated that far. It used to be right across from Santa Fe's station, and at Fullerton Railroad Days I even saw photos of McKeen wind-splitter cars on the line.

One interesting note about this line...there used to be an old PE line that ran roughly parallel to it from La Habra to Fullerton. Some of that old PE line is now the "Juanita Cooke Trail" (it's even on the Thomas Guide) and it passes through some expensive neighborhoods.
There's a place where it crossed over the UP on a short girder bridge; that bridge is still there.

[This message has been edited by SteveD (edited 12-19-2002).]

The local leaves between 7:30 and 8:00 (although today it was a bit later than that) after switching cars at Los Nietos. There are no industries between there and Whitter, so it's pretty much a straight shot all the way down to La Habra. The power was two UP GP38's (1840 on the point) and about 15 or so corn syrup cars and two loads of lumber. The lumber is switched out on a spur in La Habra (the first railroad crossing on Imperial) and the empties are added to the front of the train. It then heads down the branch toward Fullerton, passing through a canyon that roughly parallels Harbor Blvd. and then Bastanchury. The pace is very liesurely as there is some very tight curvature on this part of the line. The train finally crosses Malvern and enters the Hunt's plant where it pretty much disappears from view. There are some very good photo opportunities on this line, especially in the morning.