THIS IS NOT A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE SAN JOAQUIN & EASTERN RAILROAD

Описание: THIS IS NOT A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE SAN JOAQUIN & EASTERN RAILROAD... I am however working on putting together a FULL length, in depth documentary on the SJ&E in the future. I also hope to do a follow up to this video traveling along the second half of the original route of the SJ&E.

This is just a fun little drive along the first half of the SJ&E's original route, discovering what is left to see today.

“The San Joaquin and Eastern Railroad was a fabulous California short-line that once snaked its way into the High Sierra some 70 miles northeast of Fresno. They called it “Slow, Jerky and Expensive”, and it was that; but it was also perhaps the most intriguing railroad ever built in the west, not to mention being the “Crookedest railroad in the world”.”
“Built in 157 days, in 1912 by Henry Huntington, the railroad continued in service through the roaring twenties when the Southern California Edison Company took over. But the SJ&E’s real claim to fame was in the reason for which it was built, the opening up of the rugged wilderness of the Sierra to the Big Creek hydroelectric development of the Southern California Edison Company. For many years this remarkable project supplied nearly 90% of the electric power used in the Los Angeles area. It was considered a greater challenge than the building of the Panama Canal when it was conceived in 1911.” - Hank Johnston "The Railroad that Lighted Southern California"