Nostalgia & History > SP X-5815 arriving at Bayshore Yard 1960

X-5815 west arriving at the long gone Bayshore Yard in 1960.

Robert Morris
Dunsmuir, CA
Robert Morris Photography

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Did Bayshore have icing facilities?  I ask because of the structures I see to the right of the train...

Technically not San Francisco, but still a San Francisco freight picture! Thanks for sharing. 

Look at beautiful Visitacion Point on the left, now home to a beautiful tank farm. 

Coach, that's the icing facility for PFE they had an office across Bayshore Blvd in the industrial park. 1965 SPINS has that industry as Machinery & Equipment Co. I wonder when icing facilities were outmoded by mechanical reefers? 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/20 11:03 by phthithu.

coach Wrote:
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> Did Bayshore have icing facilities?  I ask
> because of the structures I see to the right of
> the train...
Yes. The ice house is still there, although the servicing facilites are long gone. It’s a machinery sales building now.
Last time I was there, the cork insulation is still hung in areas...

Walter

Posted from iPhone

Here's the trackmaps:San Francisco Railroads layer for here. Zone 16. A fair number of shippers in the Crocker Industrial Park. Photobob, did you ever shoot in there? 

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Very interesting.  I think the trackage there was short lived as have never seen any photos of rail action of any kind there.

Thanks, for posting

Regards, Jim Evans

When did the bank on the left side of the photo "disappear?"

I don't remember seeing that feature there in the eary '70s.

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

And where did all that dirt go? You'd think
they'd have used it for the US101 fill
circa 1955, but apparently not.

Wonder where the produce was grown
that got iced at Bayshore, Santa Clara Valley
to Bayshore to the Dumbarton bridge
sounds unlikely. Did lots of produce not
get any ice until Roseville?

The SP had a large banana boat operation in San Francisco. I wonder if the icing station at Vistation was used for the purpose of icing cars for the banana business?

Robert Morris
Dunsmuir, CA
Robert Morris Photography

E25 Wrote:
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> When did the bank on the left side of the photo
> "disappear?"
>
> I don't remember seeing that feature there in the
> eary '70s.

That's the remains of Visitacion Point and in reference to what TimZ was wondering, I think a lot of it had already been removed by the time Photobob visited, as older photos show a much taller hill, and perhaps that dirt went into 101 or maybe shipyards built in WWII down in South San Francisco or who knows what. There was also a large hill across Tunnel Ave from the Bayshore station and that went somewhere, too, for fill. 

My bet is it was removed when they built the tank farm, an SP project I believe. The photo I posted above has a 1965 background layer on it and there's no tank farm there at that time. The 1973 layer for the trackmaps collection shows the tank farm. Also attached is the 1948 layer which only partly covers this area. 

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The story that I was told was the 101 causeway fill was from the hillside around Candlestick stadium, including the cut where the freeway comes over the hill, my folks were in the SF area in the mid-50's, we came back in the 70's and there was a lot of discussion about the changes. There was a TO discussion about the RR tunnel that was in the area at the south part of the 101 causeway.

Another story said the 1906 earthquake debris were dumped into what became Bayshore yard. The whole Brisbane area does look like excavations for the industrial areas. I remember hearing the switcher calling on the radio after being in that Industrial complex, tried to check it out one time but there really wasn't much to see. I notice the area has a lot of references to Crocker Bank, which was an aggressive developer at the time.

There's also the story about filling in large parts of the Bay and other projects about filing in causeways for freeways across the Bay, PBS has an interesting presentation of those projects. From what I gather most of the Bethleham Steel Plant was simply the taken from the hills in that area, where Genentech and also those larger modern buildings are now. The surprise for me was where they pulled the fill for the airport, it's in the TO archives somewhere complete with photos. There had been a San Mateo County website with some really interesting photos and stories.

photobob Wrote:
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> The SP had a large banana boat operation in San
> Francisco. I wonder if the icing station at
> Vistation was used for the purpose of icing cars
> for the banana business?

Good idea. Add to this anything else going on a ship or coming off a ship. I don't know about how that stuff was handled, but I remember reading a State Belt biennial report about them building a refrigerated warehouse--I think it was on Berry St. today site of Giants ballpark. 

I also wonder whether loads coming into San Francisco might have gotten iced to keep them cold for the final day or two they might have before they ended up being loaded onto someone's truck or into a warehouse. 

Would make for a fascinating article in SP Trainline!

FiveChime Wrote:
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> I think the trackage there was
> short lived as have never seen any photos of rail
> action of any kind there.
>
> Thanks, for posting
>
> Regards, Jim Evans

Jim like you I haven't seen any photos of rail action except for these 1973 aerial photos. Look closely in the one I posted above. Just west of the tunnel under Bayshore Blvd. the yard job is sitting on a curve in the park. There two or three more frames taken by the flight that include this area and the switcher can be seen shoving out of the industrial park toward the tunnel. But that's all I've seen of action in there. 

phthithu Wrote:
--, that's the icing facility for PFE they had
> an office across Bayshore Blvd in the industrial
> park. 1965 SPINS has that industry as Machinery &
> Equipment Co. I wonder when icing facilities were
> outmoded by mechanical reefers?
About 1972 the RRs quit providing re-icing enroute.  A shipper was free to send a load OUT with ice from any source.
Of course that doesn't mean special arrangements couldn't be made by certain roads for certain customers. I'm guessing a PFE dock could have continued in operation beyond that time for any of several reasons.