Western Railroad Discussion > Port of Redwood City, CA

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4900679
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4902309

Many thanks to milepost20 for the above reports.

I was wandering around with my scanner last Monday, and heard two trains, the Permanente Local about to follow Amtrak #11 out of San Jose toward Luther Jct., and UP 807 being held by San Jose Control North somewhere. I was confident that UP 807 was the now-daylight local that was in South San Francisco, trying to go to Redwood City, based on milepost20's reports.

I decided to go to Redwood City.

You can chant "WP Lives" as UP 9992 (ex-WP GP40-2) was the actual leader of the train, approaching CP Dumbarton on the Caltrain main in the first clip.

I went to where the Redwood Harbor Industrial Lead meets Chestnut St. to get the second clip. At dusk and in the dark, it's difficult to shoot trains here, but I got daylight this time, so I took advantage of it. Conductor on the point on the covered hopper car had some colorful comments on the behaviors of some drivers as the train did its street running toward the Port of Redwood City. FYI, he was talking on a switching channel.

I got a quick clip of UP 9992, UP 807, and ex-DRGW caboose shoving along Seaport Blvd., third clip.

In the fourth clip, the train is heading out after setting out the covered hoppers at Cemex.

In the fifth and last clip, the customer didn't come out to meet the crew at Clean Harbor, so the train kept the tank cars and headed out, and switched the open hopper cars left at a siding close to Cemex, making use of time while waiting for the Clean Harbor people to remove the blue flag.
 

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For the Trackmobile foamers, I documented one switching the Cemex plant while the UP local was switching cars elsewhere.

That's it for the report.

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Is this still lurking about at The Port of Redword City ?

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Excellent video.  Wonderful editing, thank you for posting!
 

Nice. I do not envy the man riding point down Chestnut street. Which begs the question. Isn't the shoving platform on the wrong end of the train?

Cool shots, and nice to meet you!

John

Excellent coverage.  All this activity can be easily observed from Seaport Blvd. and there's a public
access park adjacent to the Univar and Clean Harbors facilities.

That little GE 45-tonner has been out of service for some time but is still sitting in the same location
as seen in the photo behind the Univar property.  From the TO archives:
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1954184,1954190#msg-1954190

Wonderful videos. I was never lucky enough to photograph trains on this section. Thank you.

ChrisCampi Wrote:
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> Nice. I do not envy the man riding point down
> Chestnut street. Which begs the question. Isn't
> the shoving platform on the wrong end of the
> train?
Absolutely.  I do not understand this myself.  And these so called "Shoving Platforms" are a disgrace to the railroad as they look terrible and make a poor corporate image.  Paint these things and show pride with the railroad name on them.  After all, the mechanical parts of these cars, brakes, wheels, couplers, etc. must be maintained.  Just my personal opinion.
John in White Marsh, Maryland

ChrisCampi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nice. I do not envy the man riding point down
> Chestnut street. Which begs the question. Isn't
> the shoving platform on the wrong end of the
> train?

For switching the Seaport Blvd. side of the Port, it seems to be on the "wrong" side, but the local crew set out the Cemex cars for the Trackmobile first. The caboose would have been trapped had it been used as the shoving platform inbound.

I didn't stick around, but the Univar lead, which is accessed via a second set of leads along the actual Port via Herkner Rd. faces the other way, which requires the UP 9992 to move nose in. It's possible the caboose was used on that side, or used for the shove along Chestnut St. for the return trip back to Redwood Jct.

There's a wye there at Redwood Jct., so it's possible they turned one of the units before heading back to South San Francisco.

cchan006 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ChrisCampi Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Nice. I do not envy the man riding point down
> > Chestnut street. Which begs the question. Isn't
> > the shoving platform on the wrong end of the
> > train?
>
> For switching the Seaport Blvd. side of the Port,
> it seems to be on the "wrong" side, but the local
> crew set out the Cemex cars for the Trackmobile
> first. The caboose would have been trapped had it
> been used as the shoving platform inbound.
>
> I didn't stick around, but the Univar lead, which
> is accessed via a second set of leads along the
> actual Port via Herkner Rd. faces the other way,
> which requires the UP 9992 to move nose in. It's
> possible the caboose was used on that side, or
> used for the shove along Chestnut St. for the
> return trip back to Redwood Jct.
>
> There's a wye there at Redwood Jct., so it's
> possible they turned one of the units before
> heading back to South San Francisco.

It just interesting. There are run arounds at each end and places to set the car aside. Maybe it’s more work then the crew wants to do. I won’t be telling them how to do their job. No doubt they have their reasons.  I’m just jaded because I know traffic on Chestnut St. to well.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/19 12:47 by ChrisCampi.

To answer a couple of those questions, it looked like what happened is that after picking up one tank car (from Univar?), they set that out and then picked up the rest of their train from Cemex, and used the caboose during the shove back to pick up the tank car (picture 1).  Then the tank car ended up leading on the shove back toward Caltrain (picture 2).  And then when they headed back north on the Caltrain main, they ran long hood forward (picture 3).

John


cchan006 Wrote:

> I didn't stick around, but the Univar lead, which
> is accessed via a second set of leads along the
> actual Port via Herkner Rd. faces the other way,
> which requires the UP 9992 to move nose in. It's
> possible the caboose was used on that side, or
> used for the shove along Chestnut St. for the
> return trip back to Redwood Jct.
>
> There's a wye there at Redwood Jct., so it's
> possible they turned one of the units before
> heading back to South San Francisco.

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SantaFe126 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> To answer a couple of those questions, it looked
> like what happened is that after picking up one
> tank car (from Univar?), they set that out and
> then picked up the rest of their train from Cemex,
> and used the caboose during the shove back to pick
> up the tank car (picture 1).  Then the tank car
> ended up leading on the shove back toward Caltrain
> (picture 2).  And then when they headed back
> north on the Caltrain main, they ran long hood
> forward (picture 3).

Nice meeting you, and thanks for the follow up. I guess the tank car coupled behind the caboose might still perplex some people.