street railways in San Diego - growth, demise and renaissance

The Santa Fe Depot remains the main station for both long distance and light rail, although it is today dwarfed by the buildings around it and the annex in front has today gone.

 

The origins of electric street railways in San Diego date back to 1891 and as in other western world cities they grew until cars and buses began to compete seriously in the late 1920s and 1930s.  The streetcars closed in 1949.

But after a few decades, serious studies began in the 1970s on a new system for the needs of a substantially increased city.  In 1978, the Metropolitan Transit Development Board successfully negotiated with Southern Pacific to purchase the San Diego &Arizona Eastern line, a storm damaged spectacular route that went through Mexico, as far as the border station of San Ysidro to preserve both rail freight services to the Imperial Valley, and to preserve available right-of-way for future transit use. In light of cheaper light-rail options the choice was made for this. The San Diego Trolley opened in 1981 with 13.5 miles (21.7 km) of operations on the South Line (now Blue Line),  which was mostly double-tracked by 1984.

The East Line (today Orange Line) opened to Euclid Avenue in 1986, and was extended to El Cajon in 1989 and Santee in 1995.  The northern West-East line (Green Line) in Mission Valley meeting the Orange Line at Grossmont was complete in 2005 giving a system length of 54 miles (87 km).  More extensions are planned. The system is standard gauge and operates on 600 Volts from overhead.

Details on the historic streetcars here and here
Geoff Churchman pics below.

A train of recent Siemens cars arrives at the Santa Fe depot from the north.  On the mainline can be seen a Coaster double deck passenger train which travels as far north as Oceanside.

a view roughly looking the other way, with a dome of the Santa Fe Depot visible

the end of line at the northeast station of Santee in the middle of a recently built shopping center.