MUSEUM ACTIVITIES COMING SOON
Watch the future issues of the Report for the date of an up coming work party at the Hayward property. The purpose will be to sort and inventory PSRMA property that is stored there.
The next issue will carry a report on the progress made on the SMV railbus. The work party of January 9, will be covered also.
E. B. MARSHALL PASSES ON
Edward B. Marshall, a retired SD&AE locomotive engineer, recently passed away in San Francisco, California.
Mr. Marshall, along with another former SD&AE employee, Dan MacGregor, honored the the former San Diego County Railway Museum on April 21, 1963. On that occasion, they entertained our group with their reminisings of the days past on the SD&AE. Those were the days of steam.
Our belated sympathy to his family and loved ones.
NEW BOOKS... Do purchase "Narrow Gauge Nostalgia" by George Turner ($8.95 limited edition; $7.50 regular). Your former editor, Eric Sanders, assisted George in his preperation of the chapter on the U.S. Gypsum's Plaster City line. There's also a chapter on the little known Brookings Box and Lumber Railroad which once ran near Lake Arrowhead. This book is now available at your favorite book store or watch for it in the fan publications.
For the historians....."Gold in the Sun" by Richard F. Pourade. This new history of San Diego sells for $9.50. Covering the period 1900-1920, this is the fifth book in a series. Your editor recommends this book and the other volumns in the series, only to those interested in the general history of San Diego County. If you want to know how San Diego grew from a village into the city of today this is for you.
JANUARY MEETING TO SATURDAY
Please note that the January meeting of PSRMA will be held SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1966. This will serve to call your attention to an error in a recent mailing.
50 YEARS AGO - - TOO MUCH WATER
Hatfield was in town. Just in case you haven't heard he was a professional rainmaker.
San Diego, then like now, was short of water. In those days, however, the Colorado River water was not available. At any rate the city hired Hatfield to fill the Morena reservoir. Rain it did. Morena Dam was filled. So were the Otay Lakes.
Lower Otay Dam failed and the resulting torrent swept the Otay Valley clean. Sweetwater Dam did not fail, but it did suffer a washout around the north end.
Local travel suffered. The local railroads were hard hit. The newly constructed SD&A was washed out in both the Otay and Sweetwater valleys. An SD&A locomotive, the 50, overturned in the Sweetwater Valley negotiating a shoofly. Luck was with the crew. They were unhurt. The locomotive, which was in service for many years afterward, suffered the indignity of lying in the muck for a month.
The old National City and Otay's electric line across the valley to Chula Vista was wiped out and never rebuilt. The line up the Sweetwater to La Presa was done for too.
The Santa Fe wasn't missed either. The San Diego River was a raging torrent and out went the bridge at Old Town. Along with the bridge went a number of loaded freight cars that had been placed on the structure to hold it down.
The San Diego River didn't stop with that. The river washed out the Cuyamaca Railroad's line beyond Santee. Service was restored as far as Lakeside. The portion beyond, to Foster, was gone forever.
Was Hatfield responsible? Well, maybe. But the courts declared the floods an act of God. Hatfield had agreed to fill Morena reservoir for a fee of $10,000. He never did collect his money.
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