Western Railroad Discussion > Work Train in Oakland, California, United States of America

A rail train came up the Coast line a couple nights ago and on Saturday I came across it while driving down 880. It was either laying rail or holding around 7th Street. It headed down to Newark on the Niles sub, laying a bit of rail at Cherry before apparently tying up for the night in the yard. The MRVOA was yarding its train while I was up on the Adeline St. overpass.

This being a thread about Oakland may as well point out that they finally cleaned up a good 80% of the road along the PG&E power station and it looks like railfans can start parking there again although whether that's a wise idea is for the individual railfan to decide. There are two extremely abandoned looking vehicles parked there that it turns out are inhabitated. So heads up on that. Something tells me this block will be full of vehicles again soon as the tall powerhouse provides a lot of shade making this an ideal spot to park long-term.  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/21 10:20 by phthithu.

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Decent amount of reefers in the West Oakland yard.  Seems reefer transload business is picking up.  The sheds for that business are still there, along with the new refrigerated warehouse for rail service inside the BNSF Oakland Intermodal Gateway (OIG).

Nice images of that location. Lots of changes in the Bay Area over the last two decades.
—Mac

I don't supposed you noticed the reporting marks of the cars by chance? SP, UP or another, perhaps?

you made the light and color work really well in those. Hard to do with all the haze we've had.

Jim B

rrpreservation Wrote:
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> I don't supposed you noticed the reporting marks
> of the cars by chance? SP, UP or another, perhaps?

UP 913474 is one of them. 

jimB Wrote:
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> you made the light and color work really well in
> those. Hard to do with all the haze we've had.
>
> Jim B

yeah so hazy I noticed that Oakland and Berkeley the haze is a little less intense than the North Bay and I would suspect South Bay as well although it wasn't really windy at all so I don't know how to account for it clearning a bit over there. 

Nice shots!!

Great images!  I saw the Rail train NB at Hearst in the sidinfg for a intermodal around 3 pm this afternoon.

weather Wrote:
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> Great images!  I saw the Rail train NB at Hearst
> in the sidinfg for a intermodal around 3 pm this
> afternoon.

Thanks for the headsup, Weather. Report on another site is that it will work over Altamont and then go down the Mojave sub. 

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/21 23:01 by phthithu.

Does UP still unload its new rail at the Port of Stockton?  A few years ago, TRAINS had an article about that operation.  
When you say the rail train came up the Coast, do you know the intial terminal?

Gerry

I'm afraid I don't know. I just saw a post about it coming through SLO or somewhere down there and then a few days later it was here. 

It still amaze that west Oakland yard is always almost empty even though it's next to the port of Oakland. LA/LB should send some of those ships north to be unloaded.

Proud Foamer
OAKLEY, CA