What happened to old parts after SLO County railway shut down? Toss ‘em in the sea
Context is everything.
It always amazes me when people work incredibly hard to create something, then the next generation throws it away.
Consider the journey of a set of railroad axels and wheels.
The steel making process had to be invented, along with railroads.
Ore was mined refined and forged. The parts were fabricated and assembled.
They were likely delivered by Southern Pacific rails to Oakland then transported by ship to Port San Luis. It would be decades later before that line came to San Luis Obispo County.
The following story said the railroad prospered, but it was mainly a feeder line for the steamship company that operated from Harford Pier.
As the Southern Pacific Railroad expanded, and later automobiles and highways came along, the little railway had to scrap to survive — until it became scrap.
After providing service for decades on the line, the wheels were no longer appreciated and tossed off the pier into the ocean. It must have made quite a splash.
Something over 50 years later, they became artifacts to recover.
Does anyone know where they are today?
This unbylined story ran April 13, 1989, in the then Telegram-Tribune.
Rusting rail relics pulled from bay
Narrow gauge rail axels, wheels saved from a salty grave
Port San Luis Harbor crews pulled up two pieces of county history Wednesday.
Working on Harford Pier repairs, they found two axels and wheels from the old narrow-gauge Pacific Coast Railway.
The rusted artifacts were in the way when the workers were getting ready to put in new pilings. They pulled it up with the harbor’s work boat and hauled it to the port’s maintenance yard.
“We’ll probably clean it up and put it on display,” said Marlin Stebbins, the port’s maintenance superintendent.
The old Pacific Coast Railway began in 1871 and prospered as the county’s only railroad. Its 3-foot-wide tracks stretched from Port San Luis to San Luis Obispo then south to Los Olivos.
A decline in freight runs forced most of the railway stations to close in 1933. The railway didn’t really end until 1942, when the last tracks between San Luis Obispo and Port San Luis were removed.
A statewide group, called Friends of the Pacific Coast Railway, may be interested in the find.
One of the members, Gordon Bennett of Arroyo Grande, said the group has refurbished a lot of equipment from the old railroad. It is working on an old caboose from the railway near Solvang.
Bennett, with John Loomis of Arroyo Grande, staged a 100-year celebration for the railway in 1981.
The train once stopped at the Loomis warehouse and a nearby lumberyard at the foot of Crown Hill in Arroyo Grande.
