railroad photography and blog by joe perry

On Labor Day this year I found myself out and about in the local area looking for trains to shoot. I was following the Union Pacific’s Alhambra and Los Angeles subdivisions, which parallel each other closely in this portion of Southern California.

Poster for Amtrak’s Sunset Limited

Eventually I reached the Amtrak station at Pomona. Pomona, named after the Roman goddess of agriculture and abundance, was once a budding citrus producing region on the eastern fringe of Los Angeles County. It is more of a industrial and residential community these days and also is the home of the famous Los Angeles County fair, the world’s largest county fair.

The station was built in 1940 by the Southern Pacific Railroad and now serves as a virtual placeholder on the Amtrak schedule since it is no longer staffed and offers virtually no services to Amtrak passengers other than affording them an opportunity to get on or off the thrice-weekly Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle service that stop at Pomona. The southern platform serves as a stop for Metrolink’s Riverside Line and sees quite a few commuters on a weekday basis. Union Pacific does run intermodal and manifest traffic on both subdivisions through the station complex as well.

Schedule of trains that stop at Pomona, California

Seeing as it was a holiday for nearly everyone, the station and platforms were literally deserted so I thought it was a perfect opportunity to grab a couple of shots. I set-up at various locations on the south side of the complex and took a bunch of shots to be processed as HDR photos.

Pomona Station 1 - Southwest elevation.
[9/6/2010 - Alhambra Subdivision] © Copyright 2010 Joe Perry.