I spent many of my childhood years living alongside the Santa Fe's branch line in southern California's "Friendly Village" of Fallbrook, also known back in the day as "The Avocado Capital of the World."

There has been a lot written about the early history of the railroad in Fallbrook, but documentation of the Fallbrook branch seems to end in 1917 with equipment being hauled up into town after the final washout of the old California Southern mainline in Temecula Canyon, where Fallbrook's original station was located at the base of De Luz Road. 

Because the original line's history is readily available at many places both on the Internet and in print libraries, I won't delve into it here.  Instead, to the best of my ability, I would like to share my personal memories of the Santa Fe Railway's presence in Fallbrook during the more modern 1960's - 80's era.

In the early 1960's, my family lived in a mobile home (they called them "trailers" back then) in the Pleasant Homes Trailer Court on Aviation Road.  The entrance to the trailer court was right next to where the Santa Fe's Fallbrook branch crossed Aviation, and the court's playground was right next to the tracks (without so much as a fence between them - my how times have changed!).  I loved to watch the train when it passed, and to this day the smell of creosote, diesel smoke and lube oil on a warm summer day takes me back to my childhood.

Click on map for larger view and more detailed information

Back in those days, Fallbrook was generally served by a freight train three days a week.  Usually, the train would consist of two blue-and-yellow Geeps, one to six cars and the compulsory red caboose -- or, in Santa Fe parlance, waycar.   After the lumber yard closed down, service dropped to once a week except during harvesting seasons when it was back to three days a week or, on rare occasions, every weekday if traffic required.

Toward the end of the Santa Fe's lifespan in Fallbrook, trains were powered by the then-modern CF7 locomotives, which the railroad had built in-house from some of their old F7 streamlined cab locomotives.

Occasionally a boxcar or flatcar would be spotted on the team track at the station (a small, three track yard was adjacent to the depot); there were other lumber yards in town that were not rail-served, as well as agricultural equipment dealers that would occasionally get a load of something by rail.

During the summer, Santa Fe would send a weed spraying train through town.  I only recall seeing it a couple of times, but I can't for the life of me remember if it was an actual train (locomotive, spray car with a tank full of weed killer, caboose) or a motorcar (aka "speeder," or, as my brothers and I called them, "putt putt cars") pulling a spray rig with tanks on flat work cars.  But I have a memory of waiting for a weed train to cross Main Street.

The railroad pulled up the wye sometime in the 1970's, and from then on the engines would run around the train at the station siding.  I got to observe this several times; the train would enter the yard on the middle track and stop with the caboose west of the first switch - the "west" switch on my diagram.  They would uncouple the caboose there, pull the train clear of the switch, then drop the cars and run the engines up to the east switch.  They would back the engines down the "north" track (the longer siding of the yard) and couple up the caboose, pull it through the north track and then back it down the middle track to the train.  They'd couple the caboose to the standing cars, then run the locomotives back to the east switch, back down the north track past the train to the west switch, then back up the middle track to pick up their train, ready to head back out of town with the engines and caboose on the correct ends of the train.

Depot and yard track arrangement.  "End of track" indicates where track terminated following removal of the wye just east of this location.

The depot was torn down in February 1971. I went to school on the bus and one morning there was a bulldozer being unloaded from a lowboy next to the depot and when I came home from school on the bus that afternoon the bulldozer was resting triumphantly on top of a pile of sticks that used to be the depot. They had put a new coat of paint on the building only three months earlier, so it was quite a surprise.

Along about 1974, the Santa Fe removed the tracks northeast of College Street. At that point, the Sunkist plant (actually, it was the Fallbrook Citrus Growers Association's plant; they packed for Sunkist) was the town's only rail shipper and the train crew would leave their caboose in the yard on the Naval Ammunition Depot and back into town to pick up or set out at Sunkist. If there were more cars than would fit the plant siding (I think there were four rail doors on the building), they would leave the extra cars on the stub of the mainline next to the siding.

Each time the trackage was shortened, end-of track was protected by two ties, one end of each rested on a railhead and the other end was nestled between two running ties under the opposing rail. I know, more information than you needed to know, but I have very detailed memories of these sort of things!

The Fallbrook Citrus Association's packing plant closed and then there were no more customers on the line. By 1982 the tracks in Fallbrook were removed after much of the line on Camp Pendleton had washed out during high rains. Some of the track on Camp Pendleton was rebuilt so that the Naval Ammunition Depot would still be accessible by rail but since then the tracks have been removed through Camp Pendleton.

According to the Caltrans 1982 California State Rail Plan report, the branch was officially abandoned in June of 1981. Today, "Fallbrook Junction" still remains on the Santa Fe's coastal main line just north of Oceanside (I guess it belongs to North County Transit District now); there is a wye and a small yard there.

See map for photo locations identified by letters or numbers; click on map and photos to see a larger image.

All photos taken in January, 1984 unless otherwise noted.

Map Location A:   Looking south, this whistle post was located just north of the Alturas Street crossing.  Right of Way is the gravel path to the left of post.  Track curved slightly to left behind Eucalyptus trees and passed between the trees and the building in the distance after crossing Alturas and Ammunition Road.  Aviation Road is on the berm to the right of the whistle post.   Note ties on bank.

Map Location B: Concrete culvert stamped 1946 was located just north of the whistle post above.  In this photo, the building at the right of the picture is a Circle K store, which is now vacant and boarded up.  The bus is on Ammunition (Ammo) Rd, heading for Camp Pendleton.  A small manufacturing building is now located about where the tank truck is in the picture.  The grading in the upper left of the image is where a shopping center now sits.  This culvert provided drainage from the west side of the right of way to Fallbrook Creek on the east side of the tracks.

Map Location C: Taken just north of the culvert, the right of way crosses the picture from left to right.  Right is north in the picture.  The silver building has a sliding loading door that was too close to the tracks to allow for a siding, yet too far away to load cars on the "main" so I don't know if it ever had rail service.  It used to be a packing plant; I think it is now a recycling center.   Pinkish building at right of pic is the Aero Publishers building that sits above Aviation St.  The trailer park I used to live in as a kid would be on the near side of the tracks here and extend to Aviation Street.  It is now a self-storage complex and shopping center.

Map location 1: At the old Fallbrook Lumber Co. siding adjacent to the Fallbrook Street grade crossing, the last remaining rail is being ripped up in January 1984.

Map Location 5: Fallbrook depot. Click here for more information about the Fallbrook depot. Thank you to William Ahrend of Ahrend Studios in Fallbrook for permission to use this photograph!

Fallbrook Branch Trivia: The Santa Fe's "new" Fallbrook Branch was originally laid in 1917, departing from the original grade near Lake O'Neil on what is now Camp Pendleton. By the 1970's, most of the remaining rail was 90 pound, dating from the 1920's through 1930's, manufactured by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corp. Spur tracks at Fallbrook Lumber Co. and Sunkist as well as the south track at the station yard were protected by Hayes clamp-type derails operated by ground-throw switchstands. Spur and siding switches were controlled by Santa Fe's standard high-level switchstands. The east switch of the south depot track was curved and equipped with a spring-rail movable frog. The Sunkist siding had Hayes wheel stops, while the end of the lumber company siding was unprotected, the rails ending in the dirt at grade beyond the Green Goddess loading dock.  The siding extending west from the depot's south track ended at a Hayes bumper. The north tail of the wye ended in an earthen embankment; the east tail track terminated in a shallow cut with crossties bolted to the rails.  Grade crossing flashers protected Ammunition Road; lights and gates protected S. Mission Road and Fallbrook Street (added when S. Mission Road was completed in late 1960's - early 1970's).

Subject: Fallbrook

Hello Mr. Bass:

My name is Keith Mitchell and I surfed into your site this evening following "Fallbrook" entered into Google.

First off; thank you for your wonderful commentary on your web pages. As a child, I too lived in Fallbrook and your memories have triggered many of my own. My dad was a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton and I grew up in Fallbrook from 1950 until in 1959 when I left at the age of 15. It appears I left just about the time you got there.

I lived on East College Street and I had to cross the tracks to the elementary school daily and later I had to cross them once again to Potter Jr. High. I too loved the trains; in fact all of the adolescent boys in Fallbrook did. What boy would not be awestruck by those huge smelly noisy monster machines that shook the very ground we walked on. During the summers my friends and I have hopped on the side and rode through town to the swimming pool more than a couple of times. I never got to see a Santa Fe " Warbonnet" in Fallbrook. However I did see many of them in San Diego where I again lived reasonably close to the railroad.

I visited my parents in San Diego a few years back and drove up to my old stomping grounds in Fallbrook. I was sad to see the station, tracks and the trees were missing, but my old house, Potter Jr. High, The Mission Theater and many other memories were. In fact, I was surprised to see how much of my old Fallbrook has not changed at all.

I still enjoy looking at my old mid 1950s aerial photographs of Fallbrook taken by William Ahrend's father, Floyd. They show my old house and the tracks, old station with the two palm trees. In fact, if you "Google Earth" the "bend" from about 5000 feet you can still see the old swath the tracks cut through the town.

Once again thanks for the memories.

--Keith Mitchell

You are very welcome, Keith.  I appreciate the memories your email brought back to me as well.

Be sure and view my Visitors' Comments page for more e-mails people have sent me after viewing this web site.