Simla Junction is a historic location in Los Altos, California

Los Altos, California

Los Altos is a city at the southern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 28,976 according to the 2010 census....

, near the area of present-day Homestead Road and Foothill Expressway. It does not appear on current maps. The name was used for a rail junction on the Peninsular Railroad which ran interurban cars along the San Francisco Bay Area's peninsula until sometime in the 1940s. There was a wye-junction at the locale. The original rail right-of-way moved to accommodate changes to road systems and water mains. Some of the former right-of-way is now Foothill Expressway. Parallel right-of-way south is now Union Pacific, (as of 2005). Latitude and longitude for this geographic feature in degrees-minutes-seconds format are approximately 37°20′11"N 122°04′02"W referenced to the NAD83 datum.

In the 1950s, the Simla Supply lumber yard was located there. Also in the vicinity was Val's Market, Miles Auto Seat covers and The Burger Castle. The 280/Foothill Expway overpass was referred to as the Simla Overpass.

Other data

• A 1941 Chamber of Commerce map shows the locale named Simla and places it near the present-day Chevron station at 37°20′18"N 122°04′02"W.
• A Southern Pacific Railroad
  Southern Pacific Railroad
  The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....
  
   map calls it Simla and places the location on present-day Deodara between Arboretum and Beechwood. The railroad map shows milepost 39.7 on Los Altos Branch as of 1933. Latitude
  Latitude
  In geography, the latitude of a location on the Earth is the angular distance of that location south or north of the Equator. The latitude is an angle, and is usually measured in degrees . The equator has a latitude of 0°, the North pole has a latitude of 90° north , and the South pole has a...
  
   and longitude
  Longitude
  Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....
  
  , based on the railroad map, would be approximately 37°20′25"N 122°04′16"W.
• The feature does not appear on 1899 or 1961 Palo Alto, California 15-minute quadrangle.

Other Simlas

A historic location identified as Simla Station existed in Toole County, Montana. It appears to have been abandoned in the 1920s. There is a town named Simla, Colorado

Simla, Colorado

The Town of Simla is a Statutory Town in Elbert County, Colorado, United States. The population was estimated to be 728 in 2007.-History:Simla was founded in 1909, by a man with the name of Altman. Simla was named because the daughter of a railroad official was reading a book about India when she...

in Elbert County, Colorado.

Sources

• Simla Station, a variant to the name Simla Junction, appears on The Official San Jose Chamber of Commerce Map of Santa Clara County, (San Francisco: Rand McNally and Company, 1941).
• Simla Junction appears in the County of Santa Clara Computer Aided Public Safety System (CAPSS) database operated by the county General Services Agency.
• An undated map titled, "Map Showing the Lines of Peninsular Railway Company," on file at the California History Center, De Anza College, Cupertino California also shows the feature. The station north of this location is Loyola and the one south is Monta Vista.
• Simla appears in an exemption notice for abandonment by the Southern Pacific, submitted to the Surface Transportation Board in 1962. The line abandoned, the Vasona Branch, extended from Alta Mesa to Simla Junction.

External links

• South Bay Historical Railroad Society, Inc. Winter 2001 newsletter, (see page 9, first column.)