Nostalgia & History > Alameda Belt Line and Flying Scotsman?

I'm always on the lookout for photos of the Oakland Terminal Railway and its sister the Alameda Belt Line from the "lost decades" of the 1960's and 70's, the era after steam and electrics were gone and before the mundane diesel switchers were old and exotic enough in their own right to attract attention. Photos of the ABL tend to be a lot rarer than the OTR, so I was excited to find a small group of slides behind a tab labeled "Alameda Belt" in a Logan box from the Tony Perles collection at the Western Railway Museum Archives. The slides turned out to be of ABL locomotives in the 70's all right, but not on Alameda Belt Line trackage. The first shows ABL S-2 #D-5 on September 27, 1971 on Western Pacific tracks along Middle Harbor Rd. in Oakland, CA, doing its feable best to upstage recently arrived LNER 4472 Flying Scotsman and its entourage. The second view two days later shows the other half of ABL's roster, the D-4, apparently about to switch the Scotsman's carriages off Las Plumas at WP's ferry slip across the bay in San Francisco!

Ignoring the Scotsman for the moment, I'm kind of curious how it came to be that ABL's entire roster was off the island and puttering around on WP. I know ABL and OTR swapped power around as needed, so OTR's Baldwin 101 might well have been holding down the fort in Alameda in September 1971. If D-5 was working for the OTR, it's not that far from the interchange at Magnolia down to Middle Harbor - but why wouldn't WP have detailed one of their own switchers to escort the visiting dignitary? And why would D-4 be over in San Francisco? I know WP was half-owner of the ABL, but it does seem an odd turnabout for the parent to be borrowing power from its shortline.

I've seen photos of Flying Scotsman on Las Plumas, so evidently the aprons at the WP ferry slips could handle the load, but did WP generally float its own switchers over to their isolated San Francisco trackage on Las Plumas, or did they pay SP to move them?

By the way, if you look closely at D-4's hood in the second photo, you can see hints of its previous identity as State Belt 20 beginning to reappear.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/14 21:57 by Evan_Werkema.

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Wow--I grew up in Alameda, and rode many a nights in the cab of S-2, courtesy of the kind men who ran that RR. I was in grammar school, and could only do so if I got all my homework done first. My mom would come along and wait in the car. There was always a time limit, of course--usually 1-2 hrs.

I've never seen these engines in Oakland, but I remember hearing the engineer tell me the engines would be sent to the WP for heavy maintenance work (Oakland? Stockton??), so perhaps that's why. Perhaps the engine was in Oakland, back from the the heavy maintenance performed on it, and they used it for switching? This was because their own shop in Alameda could only do light work. As for the SF photo, that's really unusual.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/14 21:53 by coach.

Interesting! The WP Museum recently had some Virgil Staff films scanned. One sequence shows the Flying Scotsman coming into Oakland behind a U23B. A little later in the film, a short sequence of locos moving around Middle Harbor Yard clearly shows one of the ABL Alcos being switched around behind a WP engine.

Neat shots.

Z

Somebody told me once that one of the ABL locos worked in San Jose for a few days, but I consider it a bogus report - at least I have never encountered any real evidence of this.

The only thing that I can add is that I bumped into Alan Pegler's daughter, or more accurately the crowd of young men standing around her, in a Market Street bar while the Scotsman was in S.F. Boy, was she a looker! Hmm, I guess that this is not very salient...

- E.O.

hogheaded Wrote:
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Hmm, I guess that this is not very salient...

Which, if you read Shakespeare, is a pun of sorts...

> Hmm, I guess that this is not very salient...
>
> Which, if you read Shakespeare, is a pun of
> sorts...

I'm stumped. I know now that I shouldn't have tossed my Cliff Notes collection...

You need to know something of the design of castles and fortifications.

> You need to know something of the design of
> castles and fortifications.

Aha, I get it! The Shakespeare thing threw me off. You're referring to PHIL Shakespeare, the original creator of the Sally Forth comic strip.

hogheaded Wrote:
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> > You need to know something of the design of
> > castles and fortifications.
>
> Aha, I get it! The Shakespeare thing threw me off.
> You're referring to PHIL Shakespeare, the original
> creator of the Sally Forth comic strip.

No, I was talking about the original Mr. Bill. Or Will, if you want to be formal.

According to Merriam-Webster:

Definition of SALIENT

: something (as a promontory) that projects outward or upward from its surroundings; especially : an outwardly projecting part of a fortification, trench system, or line of defense

Think about that 'projects outward and upward' part and keep in mind that Shakespearean text is littered with sexual innuendo.

And, to link it back to the original statement upon which I commented that salient was a form of a pun, or rather a reverse pun:

> The only thing that I can add is that I bumped into Alan Pegler's daughter, or more accurately the crowd of young men standing around her, in a Market Street bar while the Scotsman was in S.F. Boy, was she a looker! Hmm, I guess that this is not very salient...

(So much for long off-topic digression...)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/14 15:48 by lwilton.

> (So much for long off-topic digression...)

Yeah, I sense that several guys want to cast us into a moat.

Seeing Las Plumas reminds me of the time I rode her from SF to Oakland and back with permission from her master, Capt. MacFarlane, who really was from Scotland. The caretaker asked if "the man from LA could ride over to Oakland", and the Captain said, "Ah surrrrre, he can ride me boot". Reminding me that once the master steps on board, it's HIS boat.