A tip of the cap to Laine Clifford
SFGATE contributor Randy Diamond waited 2 days to see a train ride the Tehachapi Loop, one of California's railroad wonders
By Randy Diamond, Freelance Writer Jan 16, 2025
It took me two days to finally see a train on the Tehachapi Loop, the 3,799-foot-long rail spiral in Southern California that first allowed passenger trains to journey from the Bay Area to Los Angeles nearly 150 years ago. After driving up the Tehachapi Mountains last fall and waiting until nightfall, a train never came, so I was forced to give up and try again.
Located about an hour’s detour away for travelers driving Interstate 5 between San Francisco and Los Angeles, present-day Tehachapi owes its existence to the railroad. While the Kawaiisu people had occupied the area for several thousand years, large migrations of settlers came after the railroad arrived in town.
The spiral, built from 1874 to 1876, made train travel possible from Oakland to Los Angeles. Subsequently, trains from Chicago to the Bay Area also used the loop.
When the spiral’s construction finished in 1876 on the Southern Pacific Line, it was considered one of the railroad world’s engineering feats. Tehachapi honors that rail history with a small viewing station on a rural road above town.
The California train loop among '7 wonders of the railroad world'
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