Mount Lowe Railway

Mount Lowe Railway
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Opening Day ceremonies of the Mount Lowe Railway at Mountain Junction, the corner of Lake Avenue and Calaveras Street, Altadena, July 4, 1893
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Location	Mount Lowe  United States
Coordinates	34°12′40″N 118°07′14″W / 34.21111°N 118.12056°W / 34.21111; -118.12056
Built	4 July 1893
Architect	David J. Macpherson
NRHP reference No.	92001522 (original) 14001146 (increase)
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	January 6, 1993
Boundary increase	January 14, 2015

Mount Lowe
Overview
Status	Defunct
Owner	Pacific Electric
Locale	Southern California
Termini	Pacific Electric Building Alpine Tavern
Stations	31
Service
Type	Light rail, Funicular
System	Pacific Electric
Operator(s)	Pacific Electric
History
Opened	1902 (1902)
Closed	1938 (1938)
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) (Mountain Division); 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge (other divisions)
Electrification	Overhead line, 600 V DC
Route map Legend Division   Alpine Alpine Tavern Granite Gate Sunset View Circular Bridge Horseshoe Curve Dawn Cape of Good Hope Alpine Mountain Echo Mountain terminus after 1936 Great Incline incline   Mountain Rubio Canyon Roca Las Flores Canyon Hygiea Poppyfields Newkirk Altadena Mountain   North Lake Scripps Mountain View Cemetery Lincoln Pasadena Pasadena Short Line Santa Fe RR Lamanda Park & North Lake Lake and Colorado Pasadena via Oak Knoll North Lake Service Monrovia–Glendora & Sierra Madre El Molino San Pasqual Wash Pasqualito Fletcher Avenue Pasadena Short Line Oneonta Park La Cresta Alhambra–San Gabriel Sierra Vista Titus Happy Valley Soto Street Viaduct El Sereno Lincoln Park Southern Pacific RR Charlotte Street Marengo Street Valley Junction State Street General Hospital Shuttle (South Pasadena Local) Echandia Junction  B  Union Pacific RR Los Angeles River Santa Fe RR Sierra Vista  P   9   F   D   U   3  Southern Division 6th/Main Terminal  F  This diagram: view talk edit

The Mount Lowe Railway was the third in a series of scenic mountain railroads in the United States created as a tourist attraction on Echo Mountain and Mount Lowe, north of Los Angeles, California. The railway, originally incorporated by Thaddeus S. C. Lowe as the Pasadena and Mt. Wilson Railroad Co.,^[1] existed from 1893 until its official abandonment in 1938, and was the only scenic mountain, electric traction (overhead electric trolley) railroad ever built in the United States. Lowe's partner and engineer was David J. Macpherson, a civil engineer graduate of Cornell University. The Mount Lowe Railway was a fulfillment of 19th century Pasadenans' desire to have a scenic mountain railroad to the crest of the San Gabriel Mountains.

The Railway opened on July 4, 1893, and consisted of nearly seven miles (11 km) of track starting in Altadena, California, at a station called Mountain Junction. Atop Echo Mountain was a 70-room Victorian hotel, the Echo Mountain House. A short distance away stood the 40-room Echo Chalet, which was ready for opening day. Other buildings on Echo Mountain included an astronomical observatory, car barns, dormitories, repair facilities, a casino and dance hall, and a menagerie of local fauna.^[2]

For the seven years during which Lowe owned and operated the railway, it was not financially successful, and was eventually sold. A series of natural disasters destroyed the facilities, the first of which was a kitchen fire that destroyed the Echo Mountain House in 1900. Further fires and floods eventually destroyed any remaining facilities, and the railway was officially abandoned in 1938 after a flood washed railway property off the mountain sides. The ruins of Mount Lowe Railway remain. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 6, 1993, a listing that was enlarged in January 2015.