Steam & Excursion > SP Cab forward 4267 on a East Bound

The date is Sept. 1956 and the 4267 has just come down from Oregon and is running out her time on the Western division.....A lot of AC's never made it to the Western division from Oregon and the shasta division and a number of AC's made only one trip into and out of Oakland..A good example was  the 4126...But this also included AC's that worked out of LA east...In this shot, 4267 is on the heels of train 28 and had to come to a stop at east Ozol and as you can see, the 4267 is digging in....To the left, is the loading dock at the depot at Martinez where auto mobiles were unloaded from double door box cars, plus furniture,applances, all sorts of stuff.  In Sept 1956,diesels were taking over almost all the traffic, as more and more GP9's were showing up and the Suisun Turn now was using a Baldwin cow and two calves, replacing steam...It was hard to believe.... .
 

---

Wow, that's a terrific scene.  Shows everything I miss about railroading.  Steam, depot, 40' cars with roofwalks, people and activity.
To quote Photobob, "Its all crap now".
Keep posting these.

I'm really enjoying these, Barstool. I hope
that you have lots left to post.

John.

The building on the left is the Mtz depot, which was combined with the telegraper's offce. Out of the picture to the left of the "loading dock" are the LCL tracks, which is what the loading dock was mainly used for.

The telegraphers office is straight ahead behind the baggage cart and the LCL rail you mention was one track, when I was a runt, I use to watch the car dealers unload double door box cars of Pontiac's and buicks, there were four to each car.  Pacific furniture would take a car load of refrigeraters and the farmers in alhambra valley would spend several days unloading fertilizer sacks, car loads of 55 gallon drums, all sorts of stuff....A 0-6-0 would stay with the cut of cars until they were all unloaded and then take them back to Port costa.

Fantastic photo.  I have many memories of the Martinez Depot, but sure didn't look like this when I was a kid.

Nathan