The Black Hole

So why do I refer to this section of railroad as “The Black Hole”?  The answer is simple there is a dearth of information on this railroad from Indio to Tucson.  While there have been terrific books written on the Sunset Route as a whole little attention has been paid to Yuma and the surrounding area.   A great example of this black hole of information is the railroad section of the local chapter of the Arizona Historical Society archives.  While the archives list folders for all decades of the 1900’s the folder for the 1980’s, which is the middle of the time frame I am interested in, is just an empty folder.  Google searches yield some examples of items that should be in this folder such as newspaper clippings or NTSB accident reports (there was a fatality accident on the railroad within Yuma city limits in that decade) but even this information is limited.  This lack of historical information and more importantly photos is understandable as the environment on this line is as inhospitable as it gets and even today parts of this line are super remote.   Also Yuma itself did not really become the fast growing metropolitan area until recently.   Unfortunately time is my enemy on this endeavor the Union Pacific cannot seem to tear any reminders of the Southern Pacific down fast enough.  The diesel shop was torn down with no fanfare and the old searchlight signals are being replaced one by one, with the classic SP signal bridges being left on the side of the right of way to rust.  Recently UP vacated the yard offices in old town and moved into a new facility at east yard so I do not know how long those facilities will remain the only bright side is that new LED flood lights were installed on the Amtrak platform where the old depot used to be but the depot burned down in 1993 and was replaced by a war memorial park.  So I will close this post with a request for help; if any readers have any information on this section of rail line or know where to find it specifically photos from the 70’s to the 90’s please contact me.