Nostalgia & History > Port Chicago, 1986

UP steel train power at Port Chicago, CA, on June 27, 1986.

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Here is a closeup of the caboose slogan, in answer to a TO member's request.  "Be Careful Don't Rush Into Us"

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They are on former-Sacramento Northern rails and have probably just delivered cars to the Naval Weapons Station. The SP and Santa Fe main lines are to the right, and the bridge carrying the Navy railroad over them is in the distance. Generally, the job ran from Stockton to Pittsburg on Santa Fe trackage rights, then on SN rails to Port Chicago, although in later years they would often go all the way to Port Chicago on the Santa Fe. The UP-SP merger in 1996 made this all unecessary. One used to be able to drive through Port Chicago (and railfan on) public roads, but that ended years ago.

After UP started running SF all the way to Port Chicago they continued to serve the Acme Steel plant on the SN line a few miles east at McAvoy. This required a trip on the original SN rails. There was a SP-SN connection at McAvoy. After the UP-SP merger it was used to reach the Acme Steel (later Angleboard) plant. A few hundred feet of the SN line remained as part of the connection to the plant. Those SN rails may still be in service.

I remember a warehouse with a box car off of the SN line at Nichols Rd back in the 90’s. Probably gone now. This is where the Santa Fe went up and over the Southern Pacific, and the Union Pacific (former Sacramento Northern) was just south of that. 3 parallel railroads but I don’t think I ever saw more than one train at a time, and never the UP.

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