Nostalgia & History > West Oakland - 1987

I've been scanning a bunch of old negatives (they scan way better than prints) and came across these...

I was poking around West Oaklnad around 1987. I totally forgot about most of these.

First... the 7th street underpass. Notice the two cantilever signal bridges in the background...

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A view of the diesel facility before the '89 earthquake changed everything (not to mention UP)...

What tower was that? Is it gone now?

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A trio of Caddies moving through the yard...

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One more...

SW8 1123 and SW1200 2267 hanging out in the yard...

-d

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danf Wrote:

> What tower was that? Is it gone now?

West Oakland Tower. It was torn down about 1996.

West Oakland INTERLOCKING tower. There is a yardmaster tower called West Oakland Tower.

nice scans Dan. Of course that pair of SP Sunset emblem bridge hearalds are both still there (although they show obvious signs of crowbar tampering). They are cast-in ceramic or concrete logos I believe so they aren't going anywhere until that bridge over 7th gets demo'ed. Weird to see caddies and West Oakland Tower there. This is of course before my time up here in the bay area although I did see the last of the bulk SP power there in the diesel racks from 1997 to about 1999 (when yellow took over 50% of the residency).

WAF Wrote:
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> West Oakland INTERLOCKING tower. There is a
> yardmaster tower called West Oakland Tower.

West Oakland Interlock, West Oak Interlock, and West Oak were all monikers used on the radio for this tower. The West Oakland Yardmaster's Tower was informally known as "The Glass House".

Magnolia Tower was called Maggie, Magnolia, Outer Mongolia, etc.

Give a railroader a chance and he'll destroy the English language.

Be sure to put "SP" before the name.. ha, ha