Nostalgia & History > Espee F unit Friday

Train 91 the Coast Mail crossing the Pajaro River between Watsonville and Gilroy 1960.

Robert Morris
Dunsmuir, CA
Robert Morris Photography

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That's really nice, Bob.  Thanks!

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

That's excellent, I would have NEVER guessed Coast Line.
JB

Was it ever double tracked over the river or just a future hopeful build in the bridge abutments?

Is it true the San Andreas Fault runs right under the bridge?  I know there used to be "P" signals at each end of the bridge hooked up to an earthquake detector.  If the fault does run under the bridge, you're looking at the North American plate on one side and the Pacific Plate on the other. 
 

Very enjoyable SP F unit shot!

Larry

Yes, the fault line crosses the river and RR here.  I knew where Bob was before reading the sign on the bridge, having worked a tie gang through this area in 1971.
The Granite Rock quarry is on the other side of the bridge at Logan and double track from there RR east to Watsonville Jct. begins there.
The detector is in one of the boxes on the near abutment.
I went with a signal maintainer once to check on it after it detected some motion but everything was fine so he just re-set it.
The examination consisted of looking at the bridge seats for signs of displacement and checking the track alignment..
Actually a "fault line" is more like a "fault zone", usually with several roughly parallel recent fractures.
The detector is actually "looking" for ground motion from any of those fractures.

it looks like a gyralite is in the upper headlight, and a single bulb headlight is below?

when there's a Mars light in the upper, was there a single or double bulb headlight below? Thanks!

dragoon Wrote:
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> it looks like a gyralite is in the upper
> headlight, and a single bulb headlight is below?
>
> when there's a Mars light in the upper, was there
> a single or double bulb headlight below? Thanks!

Its whatever you want to put in it or have on hand.
On SP there was every combination you could have as they were upgraded over time. Single mars over single headlight, duel mars over single head light, single mars over duel headlight and the eventual duel mars plus red over duel headlight.

Future hopeful for double track, there are several bridge abutments on the Coast Line and also in the Bay Area that look like that. There is the one in Bob's photo, one is over old Chittenden road nearby this image, another is over 101 in Sun Jose near the SJ Airport. 

Dave