Nostalgia & History > San Joaquin Valley Railroad-Porterville

Seeing the pictures from the Santa Fe's Porterville sub prompted me to post a few from the San Joaquin Valley Railroad's operation on the former Santa Fe line on September 30,1993.

This was actually called the Tulare Valley Railway but was operated by SJVR until it was abandoned several years later.
#1. GP28 1825 is switching the Magnolia Packing house south of Porterville, CA. There were a lot of operational wig-wags on this line.
#2. Picking up a car of fertilizer in Terra Bella, which is about 5 miles south of Porterville.
#3. Northbound now coming back to Porterville crossing Plano Road.

Thanks for looking.

Tom

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That second photo sure looks like Ultra!

It is, the station name on the Santa Fe was Ultra. It was reached in the later
years by a short section of ex-SF off the SP junction at Ducor.

I stand corrected-Ultra it is. It always turned back here to go back to Calwa yard; that must be why they called it the Ultra Turn (in Santa Fe lingo).

I'm scanning more stuff from the Porterville area as I write. Check back for more memories.

Tom

Thank you for your photos. I can't get enough of the "old" days on the Porterville Sub and Santa Fe Sub!

IIRC, just out of view to the left on photo #2 is one of the most unique road crossings I have ever seen. A four way intersection with the rail line dissecting the intersection at about a 45 degree angle.

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kstevens Wrote:

> IIRC, just out of view to the left on photo #2 is
> one of the most unique road crossings I have ever
> seen. A four way intersection with the rail line
> dissecting the intersection at about a 45 degree
> angle.

http://goo.gl/maps/TK15T

It's unusual, but not unique:

Richmond, CA: http://goo.gl/maps/ZHaVK
Santa Fe, NM: http://goo.gl/maps/nRVHj

Those GP28's really looked good in the StatesRail scheme.

I almost always caught that Ultra run off the extraboard with an old time SP hogger John Starr. It was a nice way to make a days pay since most of it was running time with only two cars but more than once there was a couch or some pile of trash on the track down by Lindsay we had to deal with. Of course there was the shove from Ducor up to Ultra but during the summer it's wasn't bad. The winter fog was another story.

Tom,

Did you ever see the SJVR serve the Sunland Packing house on the Sunland Spur? This location was directly compass east from the Magnolia shed. Great photos, by the way!

John

Lone Star Wrote:
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> Tom,
>
> Did you ever see the SJVR serve the Sunland
> Packing house on the Sunland Spur? This location
> was directly compass east from the Magnolia shed.
> Great photos, by the way!
>
> John


I never saw SJVR switch Sunland. They may have but I didn't see it. Santa Fe did , but I only saw them do it at night.

That brings back some memories from the Santa Fe days. I lived about a mile away from Sunland and if I was around I would run (later drove when I had a car) down to the spur and watch them switch it out. They would switch it on the outbound trip, and they would use what I believe was called a "Dutch drop" switching move. When they pulled out of Sunland, the engine would be between the car(s) and the train. So after pulling out onto the main, they would uncouple the car, one brakeman would ride the car during the move to set the brake, while the other brakeman would go to the spur switch, and the engineer would "give her the gas" and shove the loads up the hill (there is a slight grade here) past the switch. The engineer would slow down, the brakeman would throw the switch, sending the engine onto the spur track. The brakeman would quickly throw the switch again, to let the car roll down the slight hill and onto the train, while the brakeman riding the car set the hand brake to slow it down. After the car was past the switch, the brakeman would throw the switch to bring the engine back out on the main, then line the switch for the main so they could continue on to Ultra. All in a day's work on the Porterville sub.

Interesting descrition, Tom. I would have thought Sunland was easier to work on the inbound leg, but the crew obviously had their reasons for doing the opposite. FYI, the Porterville/Magnolia/Sunland segment was originally constructed by the Visalia Electric and operated as such for a brief time prior to sale to the Minkler Southern (Santa Fe).

John

It is quite interesting the history around Magnolia and who actually built the tracks...The Visalia Electric !!!

Did you ever get a shot of the station sign at Magnolia ???

I thought I had lots of slides of this area....these are great


Keep them coming !!!


Jay

lamta_jay Wrote:
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> Did you ever get a shot of the station sign at
> Magnolia ???
>

> Jay

I believe you will see the Magnolia station sign in a future edition of Santa FE Porterville sub memories. Stay tuned.

Tom

any video footage?

gra2472 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I almost always caught that Ultra run off the
> extraboard with an old time SP hogger John Starr.
> It was a nice way to make a days pay since most of
> it was running time with only two cars but more
> than once there was a couch or some pile of trash
> on the track down by Lindsay we had to deal with.
> Of course there was the shove from Ducor up to
> Ultra but during the summer it's wasn't bad. The. 
> winter fog was another story.

Any relationship to Don Starr??  What years are you talking about because I do not remember a John Starr before 1970 .  I know Don Starr's dad worked at Mojave in the 70s..