Nostalgia & History > Remembering "The Grand Key Tour"

Hi Everybody--  It was almost FIFTEEN years ago that some fifty Bay Area railfans joined STASH & KRK for a chartered bus trip over old Key System and Sacramento Northern and SP-IER "haunts" and which included a Continental Breakfast, lunch near the SN row in Montclair,
a sit-down Dinner in a lovely restaurant in Montclair, a visit to the Berkeley Tennis Club, and even a "mystery railroad right-of-way" in East Oakland.  When Stash and I put on a tour, we like to do it right !  It took TWO days to see everything.  Even Vic Neves from Winterail joined us on the second day !    I was thinking about this trip !  It was almost like the railfan clubs used to do many years ago !
Let's take you back to the weekend of June 1st and 2nd, 2002 and give you an idea of what we did on "The Grand Key Tour" ...

KRK
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The "Grand Key Tour" was held on the weekend of June 1, 2--2002... We took the gang around by chartered bus equipped with AC and small TV sets above the seats.
Videos were shown of the areas we passed thru from 50+ years earlier so the guests could make a comparison...

Saturday, June 1, was devoted to former Key System lines A, B, C, E, F and H.
Also the former streetcar line # 10 right-of-way in Piedmont. And the planned line to San Jose that never materialized...

We also visited the Sacramento Northern right-of-way in Montclair and Sheppard Canyon and actually walked from the Montclair shopping center to the site of the Redwood Peak tunnel on the SN, via the Melin Cut and Snake Road trestle.

In Berkeley we taught the guests about SP's big red trains of the IER and went for a ride thru the Northbrae Tunnel...
Both a catered lunch and an evening dinner were held at a restaurant in Montclair.

Sunday, June 2, we traveled to East Oakland and inspected the remaining segments of IER trackage at "Melrose"... We also walked the old right-of-way (still intact) of the "California Railway" from Courtland Avenue & High Street all the way up to I-580.... "Stash" was really surprised that this right-of-way was still intact in most places, following Courtland Creek ...

We had a GREAT time and there have since been calls from several, to do the Tour again, maybe concentrating on the Sacramento Northern in Contra Costa County...

In the ATTACHED photo, our illustrious tour group is shown posing together at the old "KEY SYSTEM SUBWAY" that took transbay trains under the SP Mainline on their way to either the KEY PIER or the Bay Bridge, depending on the years. SN trains also passed thru this Subway... The Eastbay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) graciously allowed our tour bus to make a roundtrip thru the Subway to help our guests re-live memories from years past... In the morning hours, a Continental Breakfast was served to everyone while visiting "Poplar Junction" on the old A-Line at the "Shredded Wheat Plant" in West Oakland.

The Berkeley Tennis Club opened the long, unused gates between the tennis courts, and allowed our guests to walk the former E-Line right-of-way up to the base of the Claremont Hotel...

"Stash" and I both received kudos from everyone and a round of applause from everyone-- they evidently enjoyed themselves...
We also inspected "Linden Street" thru Emeryville/Oakland which once had a four-track electric mainline a'la Pacific Electric...

And we took special note, that where the old ATSF right-of-way branched off from Adeline Street heading down alongside Sacramento Street, that the old "telegraph line" was still intact on insulators on the poles and probably still is...

See if any of YOU can identify any of these folks... I'll start the list right off---
Front Row, 2nd from Left---(kneeling)...
"Key Route Ken"; "Stash"; "MargaretSPfan"; "Sam Lewit" (Owner--Train Video Depot)

Second from Right (Standing), with Hat & blue Shirt: "Ron Vane" (GGRRM);
Back Row, 5th from right: "Evan Werkema"; 6th from right,with Hat: "Mike Snider"(PLA) .....

Center of photo, (big guy--Red PE T-shirt--behind Stash) : "Harry Marnell" (from Southern California) ...

It was REALLY a fun weekend of railfanning and meeting new friends...

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It was really a fun weekend.   Thanks to John Harder for the use of the second photo showing the general area where the group photo was taken.  And a special thank you to STASH for supplying the map, the dotted line indicating the Subway location.  It's a pretty old Subway underpass too, dating back to 1903 ...  Wow--  114 Years ...
As mentioned earlier, there have been calls to run this trip again or maybe cover the Sacramento Northern remnants out near Pittsburg, CA.
What do YOU folks think ???

KRK
 

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What a fantastic weekend that must have been.  I hope something similar gets arranged again.  
Exploring railroad archaeology is really interesting.  Thanks for the great post!