Redlands

Robert Gaddie Photo, Robert Gaddie Collection

The date is November of 1961. This is a eastern-facing view of San Bernardino Avenue at Texas Street in Redlands, and the Redland Heights Citrus Company.

From photographer Robert Gaddie: Pacific Electric’s freight business in Redlands was, essentially, non-existent. After rail passenger service was discontinued in 1936 the Redlands line was cut back to Sunkist. Sunkist was located at San Bernardino Avenue and Texas Street. This was the location of the Redlands Heights packinghouse. This view looks east down San Bernardino Avenue. The packing house is on the left. Note the refrigerator car spotted at the building. In later years the P. E. changed the name of this station to Redlands. During the passenger era the track continued east in the center of the road. At Orange Street the track made a right turn and went to downtown Redlands.

From Facebook commenter C. Mark Sublette: I remember bicycling past this point in the summer of 1971 and seeing a Southern Pacific end-cab switcher working the spur. The PE would have continued up San Bernardino Avenue into the center distance and then turned right onto Orange Street to stub end in downtown Redlands. 2.07 miles of track were lifted when PE service into town ended in 1936. This point on the line was known as Sunkist.

Robert Gaddie Photo, Robert Gaddie Collection

Our Thanks to Robert Gaddie

The Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society is pleased to announce the donation of the Robert Gaddie Collection to our image archives. In many cases, Robert photographed the images in his collection himself, encompassing both the Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railway (and both successors).

We will be debuting images from the collection here, and we hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Our thanks to Robert Gaddie for his generous donation, and for the opportunity to share his images with the transit fan public worldwide.

Michael Patris
Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society