Clement Junction, California

Clement Junction is an historic railroad junction established in 1876 in Los Angeles County, California, to provide the Port of Los Angeles with its first direct rail access to the US transcontinental railroad network via the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California which later became the Southern Pacific Railroad.
The railroad junction was named for Canadian-born civil engineer and surveyor Lewis Metzler Clement (1837-1914), Chief Assistant Engineer (later Acting Chief Engineer) and Superintendent of Track of the Central Pacific Railroad (1862-81). At that location the CPRR’s main line (MP 485.4) to Los Angeles via the San Joaquin Valley from Northern California (opened in 1876) joined with the rails of the already existing 22-mile Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad which the CPRR had acquired in 1874, and thus established a rail link to San Francisco, Sacramento, and the East via the Pacific Railroad (CPRR/UPRR). Opened in 1869, the LA&SPRR was the first railroad built in Southern California.
Clement Junction is located in what is now a mostly industrial area approximately three miles due South of Los Angeles City Hall and two miles due East of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Union Pacific Railroad acquired the junction (along with its associated freight yard and sidings) in 1996 when it merged with the Southern Pacific Transportation Company. The right-of-way of the once abandoned former SP Santa Monica Branch that connected at the junction is currently in use by “Metro”, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, as its “Expo (“E”) Rail Line” from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica.

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