Hueneme, Malibu and Port Los Angeles Railway

It was founded by Frederick Hastings Rindge (1857–1905) and operated on his 13,000-acre ranch (5,300 ha) along the coast, which encompassed most of what is today Malibu.

He struggled for years to keep trespassers off of his land, and feared that the Southern Pacific Company would use the power of eminent domain to build a railroad through his property.

When we moved from the city to the country, it seemed like returning from folly to truth.”[12] The ranch produced barley and beans on the few relatively level areas of the mountainous property, and cattle and sheep were grazed in the canyons.

[13] In 1903, a brush fire burned to the ground the large Victorian mansion in Malibu Canyon that the Rindges had built.

[14] Another threat was the tempting sea-level route that the Rindge ranch offered for the construction of a railroad from Los Angeles northward to San Francisco.

It is said that his widow, May K. Rindge, had promised him on his deathbed to preserve the beauty of their “Sunset-Land” ranch and resist all efforts by others to invade their domain.

However, that would have meant extending the line several miles outside the boundaries of the Rindge ranch on either end, and entailed negotiating with other landowners, some of whom were less than enthusiastic about the project.

To further complicate matters, the Southern Pacific already had a right to the portion of the right-of-way that crossed the Marquez Ranch, which was between Temescal and Topanga Canyons.

Crossties and rails arrived at San Pedro docks, and were transferred to barges, which were towed by tugs to the new 600-foot pier (180 m) that had been constructed at Keller's Shelter on the Rindge ranch.

By October, five miles (8 km) of track had been laid westward from Carbon Canyon (near the eastern boundary of the ranch), and work was suspended for the season.

[22]The law at the time required that five miles (8 km) of railroad be constructed each year or the company would have to forfeit the right to continue building.

In 1908, the railroad acquired its only rolling stock, a small, 15-horsepower (11 kW), gasoline-powered engine made by H. P. Fellows, and two flat cars.

In 1929, the Roosevelt State Highway was also constructed through the ranch, condemning a large portion of the railroad right-of-way in the process.

May Rindge's expensive legal battles and suffering fortunes led to her to lease beach-front lots on the ranch, which came to be known as Malibu Colony.

Frederick Hastings Rindge, ca. 1898.
Moses Sherman was a land developer who built the Phoenix Street Railway in Phoenix, Arizona and streetcar systems that would become the core of the Los Angeles Railway and part of the Pacific Electric Railway in Los Angeles. He was potentially interested in extending his rail lines through the Rindge ranch. However, in spite of this, or perhaps because of it, Rindge included him as one of the incorporators of the Hueneme, Malibu and Port Los Angeles Railway. Rindge probably valued his expertise and figured that the real threat to his ranch would be from a large railroad such as the Southern Pacific, rather than from a local streetcar network such as Sherman's. Sherman's business partner and brother-in-law, Eli P. Clark , was one of the early landowners in the Big Rock Drive area (just east of the Rindge ranch), along with newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst .
Unlike their mansion in Malibu, the Rindge family home in Los Angeles still stands. Located at 2263 South Harvard Boulevard, the stately house has been used in a number of movies.
Denver and Rio Grande train employing helper engines on both front and rear.
The Rindge railroad trestle over Ramirez Canyon (at Paradise Cove). On the trestle is the small engine that the Rindge railroad purchased in 1908. The Rindge railroad route generally hugged the coast, often just above the high-tide line. However, due to the steep cliffs right at the water's edge at Point Dume, the railroad turned inland at Paradise Cove, climbed over the bluffs, and then came back down to the beach just past the tip of Point Dume. [ 21 ]
The Southern Pacific Long Wharf (Port Los Angeles), ca. 1900. When it opened in 1894, it was the longest wharf in the world, measuring approximately 4,700 feet (1,400 m). Santa Monica Canyon is at right, and Malibu is in the background.
Ties, rails and other materials were unloaded at the Rindge pier (now known as Malibu Pier) at Keller's Shelter. Later, in 1908, the railroad construction contractor experimented with unloading ties directly into the ocean and letting them drift to the construction site, which apparently worked successfully. [ 23 ]
To this day, the Southern Pacific coast route (now Union Pacific) from San Francisco to Los Angeles swings inland at Oxnard, rather than going through the Rindge ranch at Malibu.
Entrance to the San Fernando Tunnel in Newhall Pass on the Southern Pacific, ca. 1900.