Nostalgia & History > 1959 Road Trip Port Chicago, Ca.

7-1959, after leaving Port Costa,, ca. drove to Port Chicago on old hiway that is closed now.

# 1 Port Chicago Station...Santa Fe..?? There were 3 RR crossings. S P---S Fe--S N and a crossing guard. The person told me the Chief was due in soon. Pictures in my mess here somewhere....later.

I think 2 nd picture at Pittsburg Ca. sic S N box car.

3rd picture maybe back at Port Chicago. Great model project. There was a car like this at Louis Martini winery on the Napa branch near St Helena, Ca. I did not get picture of it. If someone did, I would like a copy..

Thank you, more later.

Don---Napa

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Interesting... the coach on the ground looks like its end has been modified with a couple more doors.

Bill

Pic #1 has all the appearance of an SP standard "depot", and the pole line in the left background looks like it's a Santa Fe pole line, not SN. The RRs from water to land are SP, Santa Fe, and SN. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure the Santa Fe "depot" is to the right of the palm tree on the far right, out of the picture.

Right, that's the SP depot. SN had a joint agency in the Santa Fe depot, which was a typical Coast Lines "standard 2A" two story depot similar to the surviving buildings at Pittsburg and Shafter.

Looks like the truncated appearance of the SP depot's freight room might be from damage sustained during the munitions explosion 70 years ago: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h96000/h96825.jpg

You can see the westward SFe semaphore
in the first pic, beyond the auto.

I wonder how far afield that SN boxcar wandered?

John Gezelius
Tustin, CA

Here's an L.L. Stein photo from the Western Railway Museum Archives showing the Santa Fe Port Chicago depot in the middle and the SP depot on the left. The second view by E.K. Muller looking east shows the Santa Fe train order signal north of the Santa Fe/SN depot and the SN train order signal south of it.

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Both views, BTW, are looking in a direction essentially opposite to that in the OP's pic #1.

Edited to add:

In 67073, the SP "depot" is over on the far left, and the OP's pic was taken from the other side of it and just a little further to the left.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/14 13:17 by EtoinShrdlu.

A couple more views from WRM in opposite directions and 65 years apart:

Looking east at the Santa Fe depot and Oakland Antioch & Eastern car 1001 ca.1912, when Port Chicago was called Bay Point.

Looking west at an eastbound San Joaquin train with F40PH 229 on the point on April 29, 1977, with the Santa Fe depot on the left and the SP depot on the right. Ted Wurm photo.

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Great stuff! The structures are long gone, but much of the trackage remains (unused) even after all these years. Thanks for the look back!

Most of the Santa Fe trackage in the vicinity of the train is gone -- ripped out when the power crossover to the SP was installed.