UP Line in chastworth, LA, CA - Amtrak station

On the main UP line that goes through Chatsworth Los Angeles, just south of the Chatsworth Amtrak station, google maps shows a junction where another rail line spun off and continued south. Can you tell me what this line was and when it was abandoned? I visited the area recently and saw traces of the line (rail and bridges still in) but most of it has been obliterated. Looks like it was just a stub end line for a few miles.

To the south end of Chatsworth station was the Burbank Branch. Southern Pacific and then later on the UP handled branch line traffic for local business. This line meets back up to the main line south of Burbank Junction were the Saugas Line heads north thru Palmdale and on towards Bakersfield.

Ok but why/when was the branch abandoned?

carajul wrote:Ok but why/when was the branch abandoned?

Because UP doesn't beleive in Mom and Pop shippers. They only want to run intermodal and unit trains. If they had it their way they wouldn't switch out a single car.

Disclaimer: I've never seen or heard about the line your mentioning. I'm drawing my conclusion off of past experience around my terminal and all the branch lines they have shut down.

It's not just UP. It's all class 1s. In my state practically 80% of the branchline trackage that was there in the 1970s is gone. The RRs told the customers to use trucks. It's not worth the cost of track reapair, crews, and fuel to ship 1 box car a month to a customer 20 miles down a weed covered branchline.