Nostalgia & History > The "San Francisco Chief" near Pinole 1960

The westbound "San Francisco Chief" shortly after leaving Pinole, California back in 1960. Next station stop will be Richmond. I would sometimes venture up to the Santa Fe main line when I would be out rail fanning the SP along the Carquinez Straits in my youth. The SP was of course much busier with lots of passenger action all day long but an occasional Santa Fe was a nice change of pace.

Robert Morris Photography
http://www.snowcrest.net/photobob/index1.html

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nice Bob ... where was the AT&SF Richmond passenger train station located

Out_Of_Service Wrote:
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> Where was the AT&SF Richmond
> passenger train station located?

Right at the yard, on the east side.

Best regards,

Rob L.

Photo would be at east switch of Gately. That is just west of Pinole.
Richmond depot was at Garrard and Macdonald in that city.

Familiar sight in Mojave back in the day... We took it to Flagstaff and back to visit friends, had a slightly-snockered dome car attendant eastbound...Great service!!
I get a kick out of hearing folks complain about Amtrak schedule-keeping - this train westbound was frequently late, which made for some great photo ops...

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

I will be going by that same spot WB around 10am!

Not the best photo of the Richmond station.

Ed

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Bob and Ed --
Thank you very much for those great photos!
A nice reminder of a sadly bygone era. Love
the cantiever in your photo, Bob -- and blade,
even!

I remember the old Santa Fe depot in Richmond
from railfanning there in the mid-80s. Sad to say,
I am pretty sure all that has been torn down.
We were the last visitors in the tower there.
Nice memories.

Excellent shots, Bob and Ed.

~Ryan

Thanks for sharing this classic ATSF image of the SF Chief with the cantilever semaphore signal . I noticed the blade was painted white. Can someone tell why it was white instead of black ? For better visibility by the crew ?

UP951West Wrote:

> I noticed the blade was painted white. Can someone
> tell why it was white instead of black ? For
> better visibility by the crew ?

In situations where a dark background (like trees) might make a black blade hard to see, Santa Fe would sometimes paint semaphore blades white. In even rarer cases, the blades would be painted with diagonal black and white stripes. There were a few solid white and striped blades on the remaining semaphore territory in New Mexico:

http://www.redoveryellow.com/signals/chief/1094E_7462_2010_01_14-5846.jpg

But with neglect they gradually fade to bare wood:

http://www.redoveryellow.com/signals/chief/1116E_7912_2010_01_14-5897.jpg