Nostalgia & History > mFile: Sacramento Northern/WP F units freight

Not a warbonnet, but worthy of a look .... and looking for info: where? when? photographer?

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This appears much like Stockton, CA in the morning. It looks like the SP main is visible in the background, parallel to the WP's yard.

John Ford

This is the train known as the SN Detour, which ran from South Sacramento to Stockton over WP, ran around the train at WP's Stockton yard (and so was operated with cabooses on both ends), thence over ATSF to Pittsburg, then onto SN trackage at Pittsburg, CA, and reverse route to South Sacramento.

Then gondolas entrained were used to haul coil steel from the U S Steel hot rolling mill in Geneva, UT to the U S Steel cold rolling mill in Pittsburg. I believe the mill made a lot of cans used in the fruit and nut canning industries in the Central Valley.

The name "Detour" came about after a 1950s derailment of a steel train collapsed the SN's trestle over the Yolo Bypass, necessitating the trackage rights over ATSF to continue to serve U S Steel and other customers in the Pittsburg - Port Chicago area. I heard WP executives grouse about the exorbitant (to them) trackage rights fees that ATSF charged WP for operation over the high-maintenance ATSF Line crossing the San Joaquin Delta. "We paid for that railroad" remarked one WP exec.

I am not so sure this photo was taken at Stockton, though; I don't recall those silver elevators in the background, and the yard trackage looks pretty feeble. I wonder if it was taken at the joint SP-ATSF yard at Pittsburg.

Best regards,

Rob L.

The SN unit was from the NYO&W after it went bankrupt. I remember when they arrived in Sacramento. I was working for the SP at the time. As I remember they got 2 F-3s. The WP got 1 unit.

rob_l Wrote:

> The name "Detour" came about after a 1950s
> derailment of a steel train collapsed the SN's
> trestle over the Yolo Bypass, necessitating the
> trackage rights over ATSF to continue to serve U S
> Steel and other customers in the Pittsburg - Port
> Chicago area.

An article on the collapse of the Lisbon Trestle is here:

http://www.wplives.org/sn/wreck.html

> I am not so sure this photo was taken at Stockton,
> though; I don't recall those silver elevators in
> the background, and the yard trackage looks pretty
> feeble.

I suspect the elevators are these things just south of Charter Way, back when they were shinier and more functional:

http://goo.gl/maps/mSW1g

The power is stopped just about opposite the shop building, before the serious yard trackage begins.

Thanks, Evan.

My shot, October 1, 1967, Stockton, CA



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/14 14:28 by masterphots.

masterphots Wrote:
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> My shot, October 1, 1967, Stockton, CA


Ahhh, up from your nap I see

valmont Wrote:
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> masterphots Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > My shot, October 1, 1967, Stockton, CA
>
>
> Ahhh, up from your nap I see


Nah, a terminal cold I caught in Argentina over the weekend.

rob_l said, "the yard trackage looks pretty feeble". The two "feeble" yard tracks are icing tracks for Valley Ice.....the shadow of their building can be seen on the right, begining opposite the two bulkhead flatcars. The two silver storage silos were on the south side of Charter Way, between the SP and WP mainlines, and were owned by the Marachino family. Their business office at the site boasted a Lionel layout to keep the owner's kids busy while they worked! Arsonists later torched the business, and the family never rebuilt.