Nostalgia & History > RDC's of the Oakland Pier

There's a thread over on the Passenger Board right now discussing the RDC's that Southern Pacific and Western Pacific operated out of SP's Oakland Pier (a.k.a. the Oakland Mole) in the 1950's:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,5838928

Below are some additional photos from the Western Railway Museum Archives. 

As outlined in an earlier posting, Southern Pacific didn't really want an RDC at all.  They wanted to cancel all of their Oakland - Sacramento local service in the mid-1950's, but the California Public Utilities Commission disallowed the train-offs and suggested that the railroad upgrade their equipment to attract more riders. 

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,5147024

SP grudgingly bought one built-for-stock RDC-1 in 1954, gave it the number 10, and put it to work on the corridor for five years, until the CPUC finally relented and allowed them to abandon the service. 

1) Dudley Westler caught SP 10 standing under the Oakland Pier trainshed in July 1955. 

2) The early afternoon departure of train No.246 wasn't ideal for photography at the Mole, but John Plytnick executed this shot on medium format Ektachrome around 1955.

3) Of course, on rainy days the sun angle wasn't an issue.  Dudley Westler shot 246 slipping out of Oakland in black and white on a soggy day in January 1955.

After it was taken off the Oakland - Sacramento run, the SP 10 worked the north end of the NWP between Willits and Eureka, where it actually got a lot more photo coverage thanks to a number of railfan excursions that chartered the car.  It also got single-ended after a 1960 collision with a log truck.  The car survives today somewhat the worse for wear, having been partially inundated by salt water during Hurricane Ike in 2008 while on display at the Galveston Railroad Museum in Texas.  The car returned to California in 2016 for a proposed Southern Pacific Railroad History Center, but this August 2023 article indicated the group behind the effort was shifting focus and trying to find someone else to take the car:

https://railfan.com/sp-heritage-center-switches-gears-to-focus-on-documentation-oral-histories/

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Western Pacific's pair of RDC-2's, 375 and 376, started running out of SP's Oakland Pier in 1950 as the tri-weekly Zephyrette between Oakland, CA and Salt Lake City, UT.  The railcars accommodated local passengers, employees, and pass riders that the railroad didn't want to serve on the premier California Zephyr.  WP stopped using the Oakland Pier when SP abandoned its transbay ferry service in 1958, and cancelled the Zephyrette altogether in 1960.

The April 1955 WP public timetable shows No.2 out of the pier at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday.  No.1 was due in at 6:00 a.m. on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday.  

https://streamlinermemories.info/CZ/CZ55-04TT.pdf

The schedule didn't leave much of a window for daytime photography on the west end of the run except at Oakland, so there probably wouldn't be many photos of the RDC's in California were it not for that weekend layover from Saturday morning until Sunday evening.  Railfan clubs soon began taking advantage of that window to charter the car laying over in Oakland for excursions, running trips into the valley and down the Tidewater Southern to Turlock, up the SN to Colusa, around San Jose, and even up the Feather River Canyon to Quincy Junction for a side trip on the Quincy RR.  A fair number of published photos purporting to show the Zephyrette on Altamont Pass, in the Feather River Canyon, and elsewhere in inland California are actually excursion photo runbys.  The views below, to the best of my knowledge, show genuine revenue runs of No.1 and 2.

4) Dudley Westler caught car 375 slipping out of the Mole as No.2 on a soggy January evening in 1955 while an SP 0-6-0 swticher stands by.

5) Arthur Lloyd took a there-she-goes photo of car 376 on No.1 passing the Naval Supply Center on final approach to the Mole on July 3, 1952.  The trainshed and Oakland Pier Tower can be seen among the clutter in the distance just ahead of the car.

6) Sometimes excursions or other special passenger moves would run on the schedule of the Zephyrette in oirder to avoid charges for an extra train.  The RDC would be entrained behind the diesels to get it to the other end of the run for its next scheduled departure.  On June 19, 1953, Dudley Westler and others found a troop train getting ready to depart the Mole on No.2's schedule as SP's Cascade backs down for its 5:32 p.m. departure behind 4-8-2 #4367.  The RDC coupled behind the diesels is #375. 

After retirement in 1960, WP's RDC's went to Northern Pacific as their B-31 and B-32, then to Amtrak 31 and 32, and then to scrap.

All photos courtesy the Western Railway Museum Archives.

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True treasures.
Bob

Kerosene rear markers on a BUDD RDC always looked 'neat'.

rr caboose

Interesting copy & great photo documentation. You even got this Midwestern SFe kid looking at SP stuff! Well done, maestro...

:^)

Fantastic images, thanks for the look. Hard to believe it is all gone.
—Mac

Wonder if "12" in the last pic is the actual Cascade,
or some second section. By the way: the 4-8-2
is in forward gear.

I really like that photo by the Naval Supply Center. Neat building. I'm really only familiar with it from aerial photos for the most part. I think this is the first one I've seen of the approach to the mole with this building in it. Pretty fantastic shot. Thanks for posting these. 

Evan, great stuff as usual. I interviewed Art Lloyd in 1989 for my Feather River books and he told me he would keep those RDCs running as much as possbile with railfan trips because it would be added to Trains 1^2 bottom line, which, of course, was mostly in the red.

phthithu Wrote:
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> I really like that photo by the Naval Supply
> Center. Neat building. I'm really only familiar
> with it from aerial photos for the most part. I
> think this is the first one I've seen of the
> approach to the mole with this building in it.
> Pretty fantastic shot. Thanks for posting these. 

Believe it is the Aberts mill

WAF Wrote:
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> phthithu Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I really like that photo by the Naval Supply
> > Center. Neat building. I'm really only familiar
> > with it from aerial photos for the most part. I
> > think this is the first one I've seen of the
> > approach to the mole with this building in it.
> > Pretty fantastic shot. Thanks for posting
> these. 
>
> Believe it is the Aberts mill

That's right as to the building on the right in distance. The building I was thinking of is the big one on the left which I believe is one the NSC warehouses. 

Yeah, it's odd we haven't seen
that huge Naval Supply warehouse.
in pics before. Looks new to me too.

GUYS...The photo of the 4367 nbext to the WP f units was sent to 
Eugene about 8-1-56 to be standup orback uppower on trains 11 and12...The roundhouswe crew kept busy keeping the 4367 to be in top shape for its nexst call that never came. Theroundhuse crew did all they couldt keep the4367 ready...BUT, A new manager came by about 159 and said to get this thig out of here..So by 4-61 she was scrapped in Eugene...What ashame, therewere rumors that the 4367 was going to be saved and SP was ok withit, but nthing happened...I saw 4367 many times in all sorts of assignments and from I heard thatshe was one of the best of the Mt's on the SP roster...farewell 4367..

In the first of these great photos we see the upstairs offices of SP's Western Division. Would sure like to see photos taken there,  showing their views.