Nostalgia & History > Muller: SP San Francisco 23rd St. before the freeway

In the last year of steam on Southern Pacific's San Francisco - San Jose, CA commutes, E.K. Muller spent some time and film at the first station out of San Francisco: the small 23rd Street waiting shelter in the cut between Tunnels 1 and 2.

1) Mt5 class 4-8-2 #4373 pops out of Tunnel 1 with eastbound train 120, photographed from the 22nd St. overpass.  That's Iowa St. to the right.

2) Looking the other way, Muller caught train 147 behind P10 class 4-6-2 #2491 passing the shelter, with the 23rd St. overpass and Tunnel 2 in the distance.  This train wasn't scheduled to stop here and was due into San Francisco at 4 p.m. on the dot.  The sign on the shelter roof says 23rd Street, but as you can see, the shelter was physically closer to 22nd.  Caltrain's stop here today is in fact called 22nd Street.

3) From the 23rd St. overpass, Muller caught Mt4 class 4-8-2 #4360 making train 126's scheduled 4:56 p.m. stop at a platform shorter than the train itself.

Today this trackage and the Caltrain 22nd Street station are beneath the elevated structure of the I-280 freeway, and another motive power revolution is about to take place as electrics replace diesels:

https://goo.gl/maps/cPvoF3ZS1AfcLtHc7

Photos courtesy the Western Railway Museum Archives.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/23 00:23 by Evan_Werkema.

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Amazing shots. Thanks for sharing. Some of those F40s can belch out a fair amount of smoke and fill the cut with a blue haze at the portal of tunnel 1. It's an interesting location kind of a weird quiet even peaceful spot in that cut, and there's a nice afternoon light there.  

In pic 3, check out that cut of cars the Santa Fe left on the siding on Iowa St.! Typo in caption at 22nd. 

Pic 2 shows the the remnants of the lead that climbed out of the cut up to Iowa St. pretty well. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/23 23:46 by phthithu.

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phthithu Wrote:

> Typo in caption at 22nd. 

"23rd St." in the photo labels refers to the station, not the actual street Muller was standing on to take the photos.

A superlative trio of steam photos - Wonderful!
Bob

Thank you for breaking the diesel monotony on here for me.
I always liked the looks of the 4300s.  Wonder what the engine crews thought of them?  Wish one had been saved.  Would be a great excursion engine.

Great material Evan! High quality photos.
Thanking for seeking and posting them.
Regards, Jim Evans

Great look back at the good old SP!

Larry

Wonderful!
My favorite is No. 147 with the head end cars, and also in the transition as steam is leaving and the gallery cars are arriving.

Offhand guess: last pic was taken late April,
and 126 was due out at 4:56 PDT.

The eastward/southward signal at the
station might have gotten moved closer
to the track, to improve its visibility --
maybe the freeway columns hid it.
I think the circular background disc
got a straight vertical left edge in
later years.

The 4-8-2 4300 series were the best steam engines in SP commute service according to the engineers I spoke with, old enough to have been working in days of steam. I like these photos showing an interesting view of these trains. Many thanks for posting. 

timz Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Offhand guess: last pic was taken late April,
> and 126 was due out at 4:56 PDT.
>
> The eastward/southward signal at the
> station might have gotten moved closer
> to the track, to improve its visibility --
> maybe the freeway columns hid it.
> I think the circular background disc
> got a straight vertical left edge in
> later years.

Great picture of it in this classic Rob_L thread. That is one of my all time favorite photos of this line. 
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,2258505

Another great photo, this one by BC Hellman, here: 
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4337125,4337125#msg-4337125



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/23 11:37 by phthithu.

Yeah, I remembered wrong. The signal must
have gotten moved, but in a better way.

Note how the freeway columns now are
fatter than the ones seen in their pics.
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/23 12:03 by timz.

timz Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yeah, I remembered wrong. The signal must
> have gotten meved, but in a better way.
>
> Note how the freeway columns now are
> fatter than the ones seen in their pics.
>  

It looks like it was mounted on a cantilever, if that's the right term, probably to improve sightline like you're saying.

Yeah now they are round as opposed to square. Still made for excellent afternoon photos in that weird combination of angled from the side sunlight. 2015 they replaced the 1906 bridge at 23rd St unfortunately. You could shoot under the railing of the old bridge. It was neat.   

Jump between the Muller photos and this one by Rob Leachman. It's like a jump cut or whatever they call it in a movie from an idyllic past to a dystopian future and they'd put a date at the bottom of the screeen. 
https://cdn.trainorders.com/attachments/fullsize/472000/5_23rd_Street_10_21_71_1.jpg 
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/23 12:19 by phthithu.

those MT's were the SD40s of their day - they could do it all

Great photos of trackage that hasn't seen the light of day for a long time. Always enjoy your threads, especially the early SP. Those 4300s were classic SP locomotives. To bad none were saved.