The Valley Division of the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at vario ...

ran from

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

to Barstow in California. It is currently in operation as the

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three Transcontinental railroad, transcontine ...

Stockton Subdivision The Stockton Subdivision is a railroad line in the U.S. state of California owned by the BNSF Railway. It runs from the Port of Richmond, where trains interchange with the Richmond Pacific Railroad, to Fresno where the railway continues south a ...

and

Bakersfield Subdivision The Bakersfield Subdivision is a railway line in California owned and operated by the BNSF Railway. It runs from Fresno in the north where it connects to the Stockton Subdivision and Bakersfield in the south where it continues as the Mojave Sub ...

. Much of the line south to

Bakersfield Bakersfield is a city in and the county seat of Kern County, California, United States. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, which is located in the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's population as of the ...

was constructed in the 1890s as part of the

San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad The San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad was a California rail line between Stockton and Bakersfield constructed in the late 1890s and very shortly thereafter purchased by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and became their Val ...

. Passenger service between Richmond and Oakland began in June 1904. Passenger service on that segment ended in the 1950s. The Valley Division and Los Angeles Division were merged into the "California Division" in 1988. However by 1996, BNSF had divided the line into four subdivisions: *

(Bakersfield to Calwa); * Stockton (Calwa to Richmond); *

Riverbank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terrain alongsid ...

(Riverbank to Oakdale); * Sunset Railway (Gosford to Taft); and most of a fifth, * Mojave (Hutt to Bakersfield, with trackage rights on Southern Pacific's Tahachapi line).

Spurs

Fresno Interurban District: In the

Fresno Fresno (; ) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County, California, Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley region. It covers a ...

area, a spur known as the Fresno Interurban District ran from Fresno to the east. The stations on that spur were Hammond, Cincotta, Bartonette, Cameo, Burness, Fairview, Big Bunch, Zediker, Riverbend, Elk, and Belmont Ave. The Tulare Valley Railroad acquired the tracks from Hammond to Cameo around 1992. Laton and Western Railroad: South of Frenso, a line from Laton west to Lanare was constructed from 1910 to 1912. An abandonment application for the line, approximately , was filed in 1980. Other stations on the spur, running west from Laton, were Shirley, Gepford, and Shilling. Arvin Subdivision: A spur from Magunden to Arvin, acquired by the Tulare Valley Railroad in 1992, and later the

San Joaquin Valley Railroad The San Joaquin Valley Railroad is a short line railroad, among several in the Western Region Division of parent company, Genesee & Wyoming Inc. It operates over about of owned or leased track primarily on several lines in California's Centr ...

References

{{reflist, 2 California railroads Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway lines