Western Railroad Discussion > Exposing Your Backside

BNSF Job 107 has arrived in Richmond Yard (CA) with three road units and a string of empty well cars from the Oakland OIG terminal. The train takes the west leg of the wye into the yard and switches it's cars on the west end yard lead. The train backs in to the historic Ferry Point tunnel during the switching maneuver.

I happened to be driving around the yard when the train arrived from Oakland, with 3 road units running long-hood forward, so I headed out to the Ferry Point side of the tunnel, just wanting to get a photo of the train in the tunnel. To my surprise, the train was just long enough for the back end of the nearly new C4 unit to break into daylight, on rail that has not been upgraded since way back when the ferry was still in operation. The tracks now end about 300 feet behind me, but wheel marks (or lack thereof) on the rail indicate that trains rarely peek out the back end. Although, sometime during the last year, BNSF did cut down some trees that were starting to cause clearance issues at the tunnel portal.

(The tunnel portal is dated 1955, How did the Santa Fe access the pier before then? Is that the year that they modernized the tunnel?)


Photo #1 - A person walking the park trail crosses over the tunnel portal, unsuspecting of what is lurking below.

Photo #2 & 3 - BNSF 6070 exposes its rear end into daylight, although it does not appear to actually break the plane of the tunnel portal. The modern design of the locomotive seems out of place for the vintage looking surroundings.

Gary

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Can't say I've seen this scene ever before. Looks like those rails haven't been used in ages.

Fizzboy7 Wrote:
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> Can't say I've seen this scene ever before.
> Looks like those rails haven't been used in ages.

They do regularly use the track at least part way into the tunnel to switch the west end of the yard. Judging by the very faded wheel marks on the rails, they have only come out beyond the tunnel portal one or twice in a very long time. But they did cut the trees to make it possible! I don't think they can run anything very heavy or rigid much beyond where this train stopped. It is straight rail up to that point and the trackage in the tunnel has probably seen more maintenance than what can be seen outside the tunnel.

(On the other side of the tunnel is the quaint little downtown area of the Point Richmond district. That is where the old wig wag signals are still in place, although now just cosmetically restored and non-operational, replaced by the standard gantry signals. The city pressured the BNSF to repair the damaged historical pieces. Photos of the wig-wags have previously been posted here on TO.)

Gary

Here are a couple of photos of the same area I took back in Oct. 2011, showing the tree overgrowth and the end of track beyond the tunnel.

Gary

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Gary, I see you alot out foaming!

I remember trying to kick autoracks from the truck crossing while I was almost outside the tunnel portal on the ferry slip side...what a disaster that was!

Ive been all the way out to the very end of those (now stub tracks) about 5 years ago on a switch engine. My Foreman at the time wanted to see how far we could go. As he used to load the ferry for SF when he hired out in 1969. Lots of good stories from that guy!

PT Smith

Amtrak made it out past the west end of Tunnel 5 once. See photo attached. More photos stuck to this thread:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1740010,1740010#msg-1740010

BNSF family days event. My pleasure to meet Fergie and GEVO Joe that afternoon.

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stash Wrote:
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> Amtrak made it out past the west end of Tunnel 5
> once. See photo attached. More photos stuck to
> this thread:
> http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1
> 740010,1740010#msg-1740010
>
> BNSF family days event. My pleasure to meet Fergie
> and GEVO Joe that afternoon.


Great picture.

Do you suppose they had enough power on that train?

<G>

sounds like one heck of a lucy shot.

SN711 Wrote:

> (The tunnel portal is dated 1955, How did the
> Santa Fe access the pier before then? Is that the
> year that they modernized the tunnel?)

The tunnel dates back to the railroad's construction, and was originally a double-track, timber-lined affair. Page 14 of this PDF (page 12 if you go by the printed page numbers) shows the depot at Richmond Avenue with the tunnel beyond:

http://www.alkos.com/prha/newsletters/XXV-1.pdf

Evan,

Thanks for the history lesson on the tunnel. In 1955 I guess they rebuilt the tunnel and made it more stable in concrete. I thought it looked a little wide for a single track, but two tracks would have to really be squeezed in there.

Gary