Southern Pacific Coast Division / District Photosxxxxxxxxxxxxxlast addition: 1-2025xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxSP IndexxxxWx4 Index

Wx4 photos, except as noted

Santa Clara: EB down #33 track at Brokaw
~ 9-1963

Santa Clara: Caltrain #77, visitor; 7-20-1992; Don Jilson

Santa Clara: pushme-pullyou; 7-20-1992; Don Jilson

Santa Clara: Royal Hudson,W of depot, 3-1977; EK Hall
Dateline 6-29-1969: SP Mission Bay warehouses go up in smoke. Once an old SP warehouse reached retirement, its fate inevitably was ultimately sealed by a "torch" whom SP hired to economically dispose of the buildings - if one believes roundhouse gossip that used to circulate within the company. One employee we met even claimed to have known the pyro's identity. Although San Jose's former Central Pacific warehouses burned down about the same time, being faithful ex employees, we ascribe the incidents to resident transients (-; The Pacific Metals building gives us a good point of orientation: A decade before, Mission Bay Roundhouse stood where the large industrial box of a building sits in the foreground. - photo print by unknown: Wx4 Collection
Even though it sports a brand new paint job featuring orange ends, SP CA-1 #690 has managed to retain its old syle cupola in this classic roster shot taken at Burlingame on 10-31-1958 by Karl Koenig - Wx4 Collection Here we see #98 passing the Salinas Valley town of San Lucas, pretty much for the length of a heartbeat in late 1966. The red warehouse, depot beyond the trees are long gone. We recently drove through San Lucas, and it is now so changed from the photo that we consulted Google Maps to make sure that the slide was correctly labeled. Like the other valley towns that found themselves bypassed by a realigned Highway 101, the town has crumbled into poverty. - Kodachrome by unknown, Wx4 Collection
 David Rector made this gorgeous shot of SP train #33 at Palo Alto in November, 1983. We never met him, but judging by the number of low light photos that he took, he often must have attended the tracks before and after work. - Wx4 Collection

6-29-1973

3-23-1972

Howest (S. Burlingame) SP 5678, 10-30-73
Millbrae: "The Boondocks" tracks across from the depot
circa 1958
1955
Menlo Park, 1954
While nice for the passengers, Southern Pacific's new Gallery Cars of 1955 took a bit of getting used to for engineers. For decades previous, SP hogheads were used to Subs and Harrimans, which acted like boat anchors when braking. The Gallery Cars, on the other hand, showed a marked reluctance to slow down. Here we see graphic evidence of this: brake show smoke from cars, tender, and a big no-no, drivers. Grossly overheated driver tires tend to slip off their wheels, as what happened to an engine on the Coast mail train in the late 1940's. Judging by the quantity of smoke emanating from the drivers as #4447 accelerates out of Redwood City past the tower on July 16th, the engineer got into trouble in attempting to brake for Redwood - and probably several other stops. - unlabeled duplicate slide - Wx4 Collection

SF-SJ Way freight, circa 1910
............
circa 1974, Wx4....................College Park............1981, Charles Lamphere
EB's at west end of Sunnyvale
circa 1973, Wx4
Los Gatos, 11-1950, Peter Hahn
WB departing Santa Cruz c.1910
far left: Norman Sarrat caught WP #1502 accompanied by SP cabooses at Santa Clara in May, 1983. Presumably it was on its way either to or from WP's San Francisco operation. left: An engineer stands in front of his charge at the Brokaw Road (Santa Clara) end of San Jose Yard in 1952. An enlargement of him is HERE. Please let us know if you recognize him. - unknown photographer.

both photos - Wx4 Collection
............

Watsonville Junction: left - from roundhouse area, c.1960; right - closer to old yard office on; note new tower; 9-24-1955, Harold F. Stewart

SP 21 at Castroville, c.1875, as far as we can tell; what do you think?
These two David Rector shots show an LAWJY, better known as the Coast Peddler, descending the slight grade at a raely photographed spot - Welby, timetable east of King City, on January 16, 1984 - Wx4 Collection.
San Francisco

We've long had a Sanborn Maps B&W image of SP / SF&SJ's original two co-joined San Francisco roundhouses on Wx4, but now we have a 1905 color image, courtesy of the phenominal David Rumsey Map Collection. These roundhouses were replaced by Mission Bay Roundhouse, BTW.

San Francisco: Friday morning, August 11, 1939 at the paved driveway (name?) between 4th and 5th Sts. at Third & Townsend.
The new Caltrain equipment of 1985 would have integrated into operations seamlessly except for one glaring omission: the cab cars lacked a feature that would allow bailing the engine brakes while operating in push mode. While hot wheels were less than a problem than overheated steam loco tires (see left), there still was concern about this. (A decade later, Caltrain indeed had a rash of overheated wheel rims that were finally traced to incorrectly installed brake shoes that overrode the wheel rim.) While SP's mechanical folks rushed to apply bail switches, the new Caltrain Galleries were sidelined, causing, in this case, an F40 to be mated with the single set of SP Gallery Cars at Visitation painted in the experimental Caltrain "Blue Comet" scheme. - David Rector photo, Wx4 Collection
left: I first set foot in SP's San Francisco passenger terminal as an employee in the same month that this photo was recorded, September, 1978. The scene is timeless. Save the equipment, it looked the same when I retired 31 years later: new 4th St. Tower and the Car Department office in the buff-colored building. - photographer unknown. right: It is a faux Daylight, but so what? This magnificent simulation was parked on King St., near San Francisco depot, on May 9, 1984, when #4449 brought it into town. - Gary Vielbaum photo; both Wx4 Collection.
San Jose's depots

Looking at San Francisco & San Jose RR / first SP depot from under arcade of the Basset St. depot, c.1935

"Bull Moose" 4-4-2 at Basset St., c.1910; our favorite SP loco, BTW

Cahill St.: SP 2411, the last of SP's inside bearing trailing axle 4-4-2 and 4-6-2 'high steppers', could frequently be found on the San Jose-Oakland Lark/Daylight connections in the last years before its 1954 retirement.

Cahill St. depot, .1974, Wx4

Royal Hudson at SF&SJ depot site, 3-1977

Caltrain #902, 1986; last loco E.O. ran 23 years later


from front page 1-2025 The Peninsula ~1958-74
Photos by Tom Gilderslieve - Jeff Moore Collection
Jeff Moore has again bestowed some mid 20th Century SP photos upon us, this time recorded by Tom Gilderslieve.

Top center/right: Wx4 judges that these two photos of Train Master #3031 at, and leaving, San Jose's Cahill station date from the very last days of these locos on the Peninsula, as #147 usually was a "F-M train" in late 1974 after the locos had largely been withdrawn from Fleet Hours service. The loco failed late in 1974, leaving only #3021 to soldier on into early 1975.

At far left - We see Train Masters surrounding a PA at San Jose, probably just after steam quit in early 1957 - note that the oil drippings from steamers which formerly occupied track #1 (the ready track at photo right) still look fresh. At immediate left - Tom may have photographed the two F-M goats in the middle of San Jose Yard several years later, given that the 1958 Halloween scheme is slightly worse for wear.
Jeff's occasion for forwarding the photos originated in a previous edition question we asked about the above right Charlie Heimerdinger shot (also from Jeff): Why was the Del Monte sitting on the center siding at Palo Alto? Tom's going-away shot of the same train directly above partially solves the mystery. It has something to do with the Stanford-Cal Big Game special trains. We are not sure of the particulars of the moment, but it sure looks like a classic "jackpot" to us.

As near as we can tell, the culprit for what is a pretty good traffic jam is the fact that football games don't adhere to train schedules. We conclude that the eastbound (southbound) special was still boarding football fans when the Del Monte showed up, so the latter's crew took the siding to expedite its own boarding process. Next, the westbound special crossed over from the Los Altos Branch (where it was stashed during the game) at California Avenue - a process impeded by Coast Daylight #99 - and then made its station stop at Stanford Stadium (top left). Once it departed, the eastbound special made its Stadium stop. This, we think, accounts for the red signal facing the Del Monte beyond the end of the Palo Alto platform in the top middle shot, above.

Just north of Palo Alto station, SP's tracks pass El Palo Alto ( "The Tall Tree" at middle right) and through the San Francisquito Creek bridge. Train #147 at mid left sports some unusual power, #5321 (later, 2728/1428) - one of 19 boiler-equipped SD7's that normally performed on runs less rigorous than the Peninsula.

At lower left is "filler" used to balance out this section's layout. If the Hayward Park station "platform" were still around today, as it was as we see it here in 1974, we opine that this fine view would be obscured by a host of personal injury lawyers lounging in their unbrella shaded lawn chairs as they looked for easy pickings. photographer unknown.

Paul Avenue was rarely photographed, but Tom managed this shot of an amply-powered #116 accelerating out of the station towards Tunnel #4.




Left: SP 2-8-0 gained a measure of fame in May, 1960, when it was fired up to serve as a temporary stationary steam boiler at Third & Townsend Station. We estimate that the two photos at left date from somewhat earlier, when it saw like service at Bayshore Shops. It was repainted before heading downtown. A live hog and a red/scarlet diesel seem somewhat incongruous in the same frame, eh?

Right: If nothing else, that enormous Baker & Hamilton building looming in the background denotes the location as SP's 7th St. Diesel Shop, where Commute power was left to congregate following the demolition of Mission Bay Roundhouse. The photos appear to date from 1974, after the 3200's began to replace the Train Masters. The upper right photo probably shows #3033 and #3201 headed towards the Porero (Mission Bay) Wye for turning, while the left margin portion of lower one gives us a glimpse of the ancient building that housed the post Mission Bay engineer's change room, where the Ernie Kiesel Collection of SP photographs then resided.


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