Railroaders' Nostalgia > SP San Jose Roundhouse & Mainline

Southern Pacific's Lenzen Avenue roundhouse in San Jose, CA was down to just a handful of stalls on its final day of service, June 30, 1992. A few days later, on July 9, I was there to locate an item of evidence and took the opportunity to take this photograph of its lonely, abandoned condition.

The next 2 photos are of the Proposed Track Changes map from June 1920 made by the railroad's Engineering Dept. Here you can see the original 15 roundhouse stalls. Note that even a cab-forward could have been serviced in the roundhouse by simply running it across the turntable.  The proposed changes shown in red are not necessarily new tracks. Some are simply moved to allow wider distances between tracks around the mainline. As far as I can determine, the proposals were carried out. Unlike the mainline trackage of Oakland and San Francisco, San Jose just did not get photographed as much. I have not been back but believe that even the Lenzen crossing is gone.

---

---

---

What a turntable that was.  Air operated and tilting on the center bearing point.  The weight of the engine had to be balanced exactly across the table in order to operate.  We also had to inch the lead wheels of the F40's onto the table ever so slowly.  otherwise the plow had a tendency to hit the rails knocking them out of allighnment,  

sphogger

I miss that seedy old place. I got my first steam locomotive ride, a spin on the turntable, there in 1955, and I took my first RR photo there nine years later. Time marches on...

Your map is intriguing. For comparison, below is a map from October 1919. There must have been a lot of internal discussion/dissention about how to proceed on future track changes, as your map is apparently based upon a different drawing (from a rival camp?).

The background of the two maps production is interesting. Like with much of the railroad, SP had been experiencing enormous growth since the Harriman years, the product of a re-vitalized California economy that had been in the doldrums since the Gold Rush.

The Lenzen roundhouse actually pre-dated this a little, having been constructed in 1899 as a dual-gauge SP/South Pacific Coast facility. SP’s original roundhouse was located at the 1919 map’s upper right corner, just across the Guadalupe River; SPC’s across the Alameda from the present day Caltrain station, just outside the map at lower right.

The yard above the roundhouse is College Park Yard, which was constructed about a decade later, replacing the original freight yard whose leads are at upper right (this yard was expanded somewhat during the intervening years, after the original roundhouse demolition provided the space). College park was expanded later - the main track wound up going through the center of the yard. Also notice some (never-constructed) yard trackage pencilled-in at upper right, suggesting that SP was in dire need of more capacity wherever it could find it.

College Park was not enough to handle the traffic influx, and SP began searching for a location for a larger yard. That that resulted in the production of the 1919 map, which showed a proposed yard in Santa Clara, but directly across (i.e. geographically west) the main tracks from the Newhall Yard that actually was constructed in the mid-1920’s.

SP was also struggling with the details of another major project, the relocation of its main tracks timetable east of San Jose off of Fourth Street to their present location through Willow Glen, the West Side Relocation. The idea originally surfaced no later than the 1880’s, and the project had its ups and downs (mostly downs) until it finally came to fruition a half century later in 1935.

Your 1920 map seems to show initial proposals for modifications to the main tracks for the West Side Relocation. It appears that the Freight Lead, the freight main track that skirted around the depot (in red at bottom right corner) was contemplated as being double track, something that never happened.

The 1919 map addresses another part of the relocation peculiarly not shown on your later map: the location of the later wye between the roundhouse and the 1935 depot.* Note that this too was contemplated as being double track, a curious bit of blatant optimism over prospective traffic growth, I guess. Obviously, the bean counters brought things back to earth later on. The trackage around the depot subsequently was rearranged several times for various reasons. A discussion of that is on my website, Wx4.org.

Note also that anther wye, closer to the roundhouse is penciled in, presumably for the exclusive use of the roundhouse for turning locomotives. This bears on the point that you made about being able to run a cab forward across the turntable into the house. Until the wye was completed shortly before the 1935 depot was opened, there was no way to turn locomotives in San Jose, except on the turntable. It’s conceivable that a Malley might have been run into the house for some emergency repairs, but as a normal course of things, large power would have run through from San Francisco to Watsonville. San Jose was Hog territory.

*Late edit: Only the east (geographic south) leg was eventually installed, but there were in effect two west legs: the Milpitas main through College Park yard, and a leg that rain in-between the back of the roundhouse and the car shop.

EO
 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/16 07:54 by hogheaded.

---

I have another identical map made several months later in 1920, but despite having color coding listed for proposed track changes, there are no tracks in color. Instead, the mainline area around and RR east of the roundhouse have so many pencil changes and erasure marks, the map is of little value. It does not show the wye either. I agree with EO's comments on the cab-forward. I cannot remember when College Park Yard ended. The way the entire San Jose "system" of the SP dissipated is very sad. I had no idea of the rocking potential of the turntable - very interesting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/16 09:49 by Westbound.

Great information in this thread.
Over the last six months, significant progress has been made toward a permanent location for reconstructing the Lenzen Roundhouse to house SP2479 and other equipment.   There remains a great deal of work yet to be done, but as someone who has been deeply involved in this effort for much too long, I am encouraged with our present opportunity.  Please be patient for a few more months.
Thanks,
Ken

1)  On the SP San Jose Roundhouse turntable, March 1990.
2)  Service area, October 1990.
3)  Geeps in for service, Oct 1990.

Kit Courter
Menefee, CA
LunarLight Photography



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/16 08:11 by CimaScrambler.

---

---

---

One of the less frequent visitors. SP E9 6051 from the CSRM was borrowed to run on an Employee Appreciation Special and was turned at San Jose in 1985.

Jim B

---

---

What a fun collection of photos!

Thanks for the look back. 

In the 1993-1994, I used to walk by it often.  I would take the bus to Cahill Station, thn walk along the tracks to Newhall yard.. Try that today!

The roundhouse was basically abandoned at that point, other then the occasional Caltrain F40PH, and assorted ballast cars. I wish I would have taken photographs.. 

Stottman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks for the look back. 
>
> In the 1993-1994, I used to walk by it often.  I
> would take the bus to Cahill Station, thn walk
> along the tracks to Newhall yard.. Try that
> today!
>
> The roundhouse was basically abandoned at that
> point, other then the occasional Caltrain F40PH,
> and assorted ballast cars. I wish I would have
> taken photographs.. 

Those F40's that you saw propably were placed at Lenzen for SP to pick up and drag up to Roseville to have their wheels turned. Almost all of the ballast dumping took place at night (occasionally during daylight on weekends), for obvious reasons. In the early 90's, Caltrain crews would pick up a SP GP9 or SW1500 at Newhall, then sort out the cars on the roundhouse tracks and head north. F40's were used in a pinch. The Caltrain work train locos came a little later, with the onset of various large projects. SP set out larger cuts of ballast cars, sometimes over 40, in Santa Clara Yard.

Ballast cars were also stored in the remnant of College Park Yard. In the dead of one night, a crew who hadn't read a UP track bulletin because it apparently was never posted at Caltrain, shoved a ballast car off the end of a CP Yard trestle that had burned a couple of days earlier. The conductor riding the point noticed the problem just a little too late, but managed to join the birds in the nick of time.

 

I hostled therea few times in 69 & 70. The table was air & a "balance" type. Panama Hatie ran it and there were markers on it where to stop, with type of engine. (FM, Geeps, Fs)  She knew in inches if you had a strange engine.  A real education. We would water those FMs when they would come in, turn them and put them back out on the outbound. The wheels were stil hot where you could not get near them after the run down from SF.

I just missed you Stottman! Exploring the SP lines around San Jose was one of the best parts of my childhood. My grandma used to live on Lenzen, so I'd spend the weekend with her and hang around the roundhouse and make the walk to Newhall.  The remnants of trackage all across San Jose in the early 90's were like a cool sort of urban archeology. I tried to piece together what the College park yard used to be, the old WP roundhouse yard by Oliner school, the big interchange by Alma St. and of ocurse the original 4th street line.  

Like you, I also wished I took pictures!  I moved out of Cali in 93 and didn;t make it back until 2001.  I of course visited the yard and found the sad remains of the roundhouse. Then I went back on 07 to find them finishing up on the new Caltrain facility. Then my wife and I had a Starbucks about where the PMT building used to be. They did clean up the guadalupe quite a bit from what it was.  

I have to get them scanned, but I do have some pictures of the Amtrak local turning on the wye and the Ace trains they were storing there circa 2007.  I also got pics of the turntable since it was still there. I'll have to scan them if I can.  THanks all for the pictures (and memories!)