Western Railroad Discussion > The Streets of San Francisco

This morning I caught the UP South San Francisco Local heading into "The City" to pick up some loads of dirty dirt out at pier 96. There are only a hand full of customers left in this once great rail town and this local is on borrowed time. The train has dropped off the Caltrain main and is actully on BNSF rails within SF.

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Heading out to the peir.

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Some of the curves and parking lots it travels through.

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Getting a police escort, Its crossing 3rd Street. They are in the process if installing a double track LRV line across this spur. The Carol St. lead already has the diamonds in place. These traffic cops trying ot keep order around the street work were surprised to see the train.

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Picking up laods of dirty dirt. SF was once a large industrial town. There is a lot of dirty dirt that needs to be sent to Utah so folks can build new condos.

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More dirty dirt. The Darling Lard plant behind that also gets rail service.

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Parting the sea with fresh loads of dirt these vehicles didn't know what to expect but quickly moved out of the way.

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Getting the hell out of town btwn commutes. Run 8 all the way back to SSF to call it a day. This is Paul Ave Station. To the left stood a Lucky Lager brewery and now homes. On the right was a Coca Cola plant and now the lead to the GGRM and a few other customers.

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They had a SW1500 on the local a few days ago, haven't seen one on this end in a long time.

Great story!!!

wlj619 Wrote:
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> Great story!!!



yes i agree........is it possible to draw a short map or track diagram of the route for thos of us not cognisant with the street trackage?

thanks any help!

Looks like fun Mike. Are these video captures?

I sure enjoyed the pictures! I'd love to see more and I'd also like to see a drawing f where the route of the dirt train runs.

sagehen Wrote:
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> I sure enjoyed the pictures! I'd love to see more
> and I'd also like to see a drawing f where the
> route of the dirt train runs.

Or even the original trackage.

I had the occasion to design a rail project at pier 96 in 1985. It was served by this lead, which at the time was known as the Quint Street lead. Then it was SP not SF. Not only does this line do a lot of street running, it has back to back 15 degree reversing curves with track in the pavement right between two scrap iron operations. They unload their scrap trucks in that street. Oh yes, as the line departs the SP main it descends a 3% grade that ends with a grade crossing.

The Port of San Francisco thought it could get in on that Intermodal craze. They wanted to run full double stack trains straight through to Pier 96. (No they weren't joking.) Not only was the Quint Street Lead a problem, but once to the waterfront there wasn't enough length for a full train unless we built a new trestle all the way out to Hunters Point. And then there was that impediment called tunnels three and four that could not pass a full height double stack load unless a new Gauntlet Track was built or the tunnel floor lowered about two feet.

They actually built stage one on the plan and did ship some container traffic. But ultimately all the business that was left crossed over the Oakland. Could you just see double-stacks competing for track time with the CalTrain commute?

XMOP
Ron Zimmer

Not the best of maps(got a SPINS map, Frank?), but the Quint Street Industrial lead leaves the Caltrain main(the only rail line shown on this map) just south of Jerrold and drops steeply on to private r/o/w and proceeds to cross Evans before entering two blocks of street running on Quint(the unmarked street with the red star) before crossing 3rd Street immediately south of the Islais Creek bridge, then enters port area.

Link from this past March has additional shots of those sharp reverse curves on Quint:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,700631

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If this works it should display an air photo of the Quint Street area.

The mainline exits tunnel four in the lower left corner of the photo. The lead track departs the main just north of that point. Pier 96 is the waterfront area in the upper right quadrant.

If this works reasonably well I try a few shots that are zoomed in a little closer.

XMOP

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Here the lead departs the main and descends to street grade, crossing Quint Street at the base of the grade. (3%)

XMOP

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More!

The street run past the scrap yard is to the left and then the back to back 15 degree cruves put the line in Quint Street.

XMOP

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As Quint Street reaches the water of Islais Creek the line takes another tight turn and crosses Third at Cargo Way. This curve may be as tight as 18 degrees and very close clearence at the building on the corner.

XMOP

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