Glendale and Montrose Railway – Driving the Route

During the big growth years of 1913 to 1930, the Glendale and Montrose Railway, an electrified trolley line, connected Montrose and the rest of the valley to the larger world of Glendale and Los Angeles. Last week I got together with a group of history buffs to drive the route of the old trolley line. We piled into my mini-van and headed to the terminus of the line at the edge of Los Angeles.

We pulled off San Fernando Road at its intersection with Verdugo Road. It’s here that in the 1920s folks coming up from Downtown LA would get off the narrow-gauge Los Angeles Railway trolley (the “Yellow Car”), and walk over to climb onto the standard-gauge G&M trolley for the trip to La Crescenta. 

We continued up a small road that parallels San Fernando Road where the tracks used to be until we got to Ribet Academy, which had been Theme Hosery. The old track beds become private property at this point and we got chased off by a security guard, so we jumped over to San Fernando. 

The tracks used to run by Forest Lawn Glendale, so we drove in the front gates and walked into an Employees Only maintenance yard. It’s there that the original tracks have broken through the asphalt and we were able to “touch the holy rail.”

At Forest Lawn, the old tracks would have transitioned onto the center of Glendale Avenue. We continued up Glendale Avenue. At the Glendale Civic Center just past Broadway we noted where the main ticket office for the G&M would have been. As well, the Pacific Electric trolley connected at Broadway and the Glendale and Eagle Rock Railway connected at Wilson. Just past Wilson we noted the spot where the famous runaway flat car crash happened. And coming to California Avenue we looked left, to where Litchfield Lumber was (now Whole Foods). Lumber was delivered here via a Union Pacific steam engine then taken by the G&M electric locomotive to Montrose.

Continuing up Glendale Avenue and Verdugo, at Mountain Avenue we looked right where Kalem Studios was. It made many silent films set in Glendale and the Crescenta Valley and crashed one of the G&M trolleys for an action film. After transitioning to Canada Boulevard, we pulled in at Verdugo Park where a siding was located that brought picnickers up from LA for a day in the wilderness of Verdugo Canyon. The wooden ties had been visible under the grass until 20 years ago.

Then up Canada Boulevard to Verdugo again, and up to Montrose, passing the center median in Sparr Heights where the tracks had been. We turned left and parked at Anawalt Lumber. We all went into the lumber barn in back that had been the trolley maintenance barn. Here the asphalt had been laid over the tracks but cracks were forming over the rails (“track cracks”) showing distinctly the rail line into the barn. Up in the rafters we spotted a couple of old “knob and tube” insulators left over from G&M days.

After that we drove over to the powerhouse, the structure that held the huge generators that powered the G&M. We went up the alley off Verdugo, between the martial arts place and the liquor store. It’s easy to spot which building was the powerhouse (now a beauty salon) as it has a rock foundation. It’s now the oldest building in Montrose having been built in 1913. While there, we talked to the property owner who said several people lately have come up to see it – one of them even breaking into the crawl space to look at the generator mounting pads.

We continued up the wide Montrose Avenue where the trolley would have run in the middle of the street. We stopped at the end of the line, Pennsylvania Avenue. It’s here that freight would have been loaded on flat cars, produce from orchards, granite from quarries in the Verdugos and graphite ore from a mine.

It was a fun trip through the past, revisiting a time when steel rails brought folks to our valley.