The Maintenance of Way Shed at Ferum California - Constructed of spent railroad ties (wooden sleepers) and salvaged rails, the maintenance of way shed at Ferum California stands abandon after the closing of the Eagle Mountain line in 1986.
Ferum history: Loads of iron ore in open gondolas were brought to the small yard at Ferrum located along the Southern Pacific's Sunset Route by the Salton Sea in Southern Riverside County.
The ore, destined for the Kaiser steel mill in Fontana California was mined at Eagle Mountain (actually a large hole in the ground) some 51 miles North of Ferrum by Kaiser Steel and the loaded gondolas were brought to Ferrum by the Eagle Mountain RR (also owned by Kaiser Steel) and interchanged with Southern Pacific at that point.
The Ferrum job was a day job out of SP’s West Colton yard and the crew would bring empties down and take full cars back.
A second job would shuttle the full ore cars from West Colton to the mill site in Fontana and bring empties destined for Ferrum back to the West Colton yard.
When operations commenced in 1947 there were two trains a day on the Eagle Mountain line, but by the 1980’s that traffic had decreased to one.
The last revenue run on the line was in 1986 and the mill in Fontana was sold off and the land reused in the 1990’s (Fontana Speedway sits on part of the old mill site.)
This railroad ceased operations in 1986 and there are no operable trains on this track.