Steam & Excursion > Sometimes Small Remote Facilities Were Needed For Big Steam!

When we think of the steam servicing facilities for big mainline railroads in the steam era we usually think of large expansive roundhouses or shops that were capable of servicing dozens of steam locomotives at a time.  However, that was not always the case as we see here.

The Atichison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad certainly did have it's share of large steam facilities.  But they also had small remote ones like this too.

Here we see the single-stall enginehouse built and maintained by the AT&SF for it's locomotives used to switch the car ferry that docked on the end of Alice Street in Oakland.  This fine 1940 view by Ralph Demoro shows the simple structure that was used to house and service the AT&SF locomotives that were based at the Alice Street Ferry.

It appears that a couple of railroad officials have dropped by on this day to visit with the locomotive crew.  AT&SF #2148 is tucked inside awaiting the arrival of the next ferry to unload.

Martin



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/18 02:58 by LoggerHogger.

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Nice building for a model railroad.  Does it really have a lean to it?  Nice and unusual touch to have a planter box along the front of the building.  Thanks for posting.
Roger Beckett

up833 Wrote:
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> Nice building for a model railroad.  Does it
> really have a lean to it?  Nice and unusual touch
> to have a planter box along the front of the
> building.  Thanks for posting.
> Roger Beckett

Possibly a slight lean, but the street going to the left of the tracks looks like it is starting a downgrade. That and the camera angle might be slightly tilted?...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/18 09:57 by patd3985.

Used the leveling function on PSE and it looks like the engine house track is about a foot higher than the track to the left, the flower box seems to trail a bit downhill. The building itself is suffering from the wide angle lens.
That area is along the waterfront, they apparently built up the base before constructing the building. I beleive that area is now the Jack London Square, or very near it. There was a couple of recent articles about the switching district and the car ferry. Historic aerial .com shows most of the buildings still in place around 1958. The area is unique in that the track arrangement is simply four turns at the corners of the property with industries arranged on the straight grid arrangement of the area, plus the ferry slip in the south western corner.

Some folks may remember the large concrete areas across the water from this area, apparently those were ship building 'ways' where a ship is built and launched intothe Estuary. Once again Historica aerials comes to the rescue and shows a warship sitting on the concrete area with another ship tied up to a nearby pier. The topo maps also show the switching area and tracks clearly.

I used the joint of the metal panels above the windows for the leveling function, mostly from one end of the buidling to the other. also tried the tiop of the widows with the same effect.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/18 10:55 by TCnR.

phthithu Wrote:
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> I forgot about the ATSF freight slip in Oakland.
> Did they have a number of customers near the slip?

Yes.

The WP's and the Santa Fe's "engine facilities" in San Francisco were about the same size too.

phthithu Wrote:
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> I forgot about the ATSF freight slip in Oakland.
> Did they have a number of customers near the slip?

think there was an article in Model Railroad Planning and another in Model Railroader about the Alice St terminal.  The KTVU Channel 2 studio covers a lot of the former site just south of Jack London Square.  

Nathan

It's worth noting that while the Santa Fe freight house for this isolated operation was on Alice St., the slip was several blocks to the east, in line with Fallon St.  I posted some aerial obliques showing the Santa Fe facilities along the estuary in this old thread:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3567368,3567831#3567831

atsf121 wrote:

> think there was an article in Model Railroad Planning and another in Model Railroader about the  Alice St terminal.

The Jan. 2014 issue of Model Railroad Planning had the article about the Alice St. terminal.  The issue is still available from Kalmbach.

phthithu wrote:

> I forgot about the ATSF freight slip in Oakland.  Did they have a number of customers near the slip?

The article included a map identifying the nearby customers.
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/18 13:26 by johnsweetser.