Nostalgia & History > Vintage SP at Palo Alto as seen by Charles Heimerdinger Jr.

I’ve been scanning a lot of Charles Heimerdinger Jr.’s vintage Southern Pacific slides recently and will be posting them in groups roughly by subject.  Technically I started with the thread about ten days ago on SP’s Bay Area Baldwins, so this will be the second post. 
 
Palo Alto on the Peninsula between San Jose and San Francisco was one of Charles’s favored hangouts in the late 1950s.  Some of these I have posted to this board in the past, so forgive the duplications please. 
 
We’ll start this series with a late afternoon traffic jam at Palo Alto probably around 1959.  In the first shot we have a somewhat unusual event, SP #5600 powering Train #78, the Del Monte, sitting on the center siding at the depot.  Turning around we see the reason for the event, two “Big Game Trains” associated with the Stanford-Cal football game.  In the second shot we see Passenger Extra 6005 sitting in the approximately 2,400 foot long siding that ran geographically southeast from the Embarcadero underpass as discussed in Page 2 of the following thread:
 
  https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,5830707,5830707#msg-5830707
 
This photo answers at least some of the questions raised in the above thread about the daylight painted power.  I talked this over with E.O. Gibson earlier today, his speculation is this is the football special from Berkeley.  If you look carefully in the far distance, which may not be entirely clear in a scan this size, you can just see the nose of black widow painted FM, which reveals itself to be a “Big Game Train”, seen passing the X6005 in the third shot. 
 
To be continued. 
 

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We’ll start this with one last photo from the series, the “Big Game Train” about to pass the Del Monte still holding in the center passing track.  Over on his website E.O. writes the following about what is probably going on here:
 
“As near as we can tell, the culprit for what is a pretty good traffic jam is the fact that football games don't adhere to train schedules. We conclude that the eastbound (southbound) special was still boarding football fans when the Del Monte showed up, so the latter's crew took the siding to expedite its own boarding process. Next, the westbound special crossed over from the Los Altos Branch (where it was stashed during the game) at California Avenue - a process impeded by Coast Daylight #99 - and then made its station stop at Stanford Stadium. Once it departed, the eastbound special made its Stadium stop. This, we think, accounts for the red signal facing the Del Monte beyond the end of the Palo Alto platform.”
 
We’ll wrap up this second page with two shots of the SP #5600 with an extra local freight passing through eastbound through Palo Alto in 1958.  Neves and Jennison used the first of these two photos in their Southern Pacific Western Division book, they write in the caption that the express car in the background would be loaded with dairy products and fresh flowers and that it would be picked up by an afternoon train to be transported to San Francisco.  Charles also mentioned to them this was the only time he saw one of SP’s passenger equipped Geeps in local freight service. 
 
To be continued. 
 

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Charles especially liked the San Francisquito Creek bridge that sits just north (railroad west) of the Palo Alto depot.  In the first two shots we have coming and going shots from the Palo Alto Avenue crossing of the eastbound Coast Daylight, Train 98, behind Alco PA-1 #6044 crossing the bridge and then pulling into the station.  For the third photo we’re jumping to the other side of the bridge to catch the westbound Coast Daylight, Train 99, behind EMD E-9 #6053.  Growing out of the roof of the second unit is the “historic tree”, also known as “The Tall Tree”.   
 
To be continued. 
 

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For these three photos we’re staying on the north (railroad west) side of the San Francisquito Creek bridge.  First up is Train 149 behind EMD SD-7 #5321, also recorded to be shot in 1958.  Next up is F-M Trainmaster #4808 powering Train 171.  Last up is the westbound Train 91, the Coast Mail, behind F7A #6223. 
 
To be continued. 
 

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For this final page for this post we’ve got three somewhat random shots.  First up is another shot of the eastbound Del Monte pulling into Palo Alto behind GP9 #5625.  Second up is a shot of a light power move operating as X5605 that Charles only identified as “near Palo Alto” though the Peninsula Building Materials Co. facility should nail the location down.  For the final shot we’re going to jump a short distance north (railroad west) to Menlo Park for another shot of the SP #6053 with Train 98 passing the freight house.  Thanks to E.O. for identifying this location; he wrote “ The photo gave me a little laugh. One afternoon in November, 1978, I was a brakeman on the eastbound Permanente Local, which paused here to set out a boxcar on the team track just visible amid the weeds beyond the platform. It wasn't to be. The track department had pulled up the track earlier in the day. That's kinda the way SP tended to function in those days.”
 
Thanks to E.O. and everyone who responded to my earlier thread for additional details and information, and thanks to everyone for looking.  I’ll have another group of vintage SP images in a couple days. 
 
Jeff Moore
Elko, NV      
 

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Upon further review I identified once more photo that should be part of this thread, another repeat from an earlier post but worth posting again.  In this shot Charles caught the E9A #6051 in its Halloween paint job with Train 99 between Palo Alto and Menlo Park, the bridge and historic tree are visible in the distance. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV 

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Thanks for posting these classic images, Jeff.

I remember #5600 in "Black Widow" paint from my teenage years when it was frequently the sole power on the former Rogue River mixed passenger / milk train that once ran daily between Portland and Medford on the Siskiyou line.

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

A treasure trove of historic gems!
Bob

Not only a fabulous variety of trains and paint schemes, but also a great assortment of Gyralites.  Thanks for posting!  BSB 

Classic set of photos from those transition yeears.

Kinda scary how many of those backgrounds I can remember, most of the landmarks are long gone.

t4p.

Great historic bunch.
JB

A lot of great stuff to point a camera at in mostly open settings!
Gonut

Thanks Jeff. Guess you have time to post these for the time being.
Regards, Jim Evans

Fantastic images, Black Widows, Daylight, and the Great Pumpkin-great to view.  More please!

Charley was in high school when he took these photos, living in Palo Alto. He always had a great touch for excellent framing, fortunately giving us backgrounds that are very different from what we would see in the same location today. Many thanks for posting these photos. I hope we can look forward to seeing many more.

A WOW look back at the good ple SP. Sure miss those days!

Larry

Excellent set. Thanks for posting. When I was growing up in Palo Alto, our parents would occasionally drive us to that area and park near the bridge and El Palo Alto to watch the commute fleet, plus the Daylight, go through. I don’t think 98 and 99 stopped at Palo Alto back then. I believe that stop was added in the early 60s. Maybe someone knows exactly when that started.

Posted from iPhone

Big Game was always late November? At Stanford
in odd-number years?

In November 1959, 78 was due out of Palo Alto at 7:04 PST --
which means 100% dark. And why would the Game specials
still be there then? When did the game start -- 1 PM? 1:30?

https://wx4.org/to/foam/maps/2-Zukas/24/1959-09-27SP_Coast178-Zukas.pdf

The sunny pic of 78 at Palo Alto must be earlier -- in summer 1958
78 was due out of there at 4:37 PDT.

(I looked at the Tribune for 21 and 22 Nov 1959 at cdnc.ucr.edu --
didn't find the scheduled start time for the game.)

Guess everything works if we move the Big Game pics back to 1957.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/25 17:51 by timz.

Thanks for sharing Charlie's work. Interesting guy.

Jeff, thanks for posting these! Charlie captured some amazing, classic SP scenes!

The Del Monte shot facing the red signal is one that I haven't seen from his collection before.

Dave