Nostalgia & History > SP PA's Lead at Berkeley

A friend stumbled upon a treasure trove of slides, six full carousels, at a flea market in San Francisco last year and generously gifted them to me. The archive spans many railroads across the country, with some truly remarkable images from long ago that I think many of you will appreciate. Unfortunately, none of the slides indicate who the photographer was. That said, I recently scanned a few photos for a project and wanted to share them with you all. No immediate plans to digitize the entire archive, but when I do, I'll be sure to post more here.

1. SP Alcos on #12, The Cascade, Berkeley, Calif. PA-2 #6026 (slide mount marked Oct. 1963)
2. SP Alcos on #11, Berkeley, Calif., #6035 
3. SP Alcos on #102, May 1958, Berkeley, Calif.

Alex Ramos 

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This SP brat says "Wow."

AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

Nice stuff Alex. Appreciate you sharing them here. Mostly Kodachrome probably by the look of the quality. Looking forward to more.
Hope your still shooting railroad subjects. Thanks 

Brings back memories growing up in Berkeley. Vaguely recall Tr102 departing at 3:45 pm; Tr12 at 4:45; with Alco PAs. I’d ride my bike to the depot to watch.

Hang around longer and There was the westbound SJ Daylight, the westbound Senator (GP9), the eastbound El Dorado (black widow F7). Busy spot. One by one they were discontinued. Fun times.

Posted from iPhone

Nice work on the scanning, Alex.  'Looking forward to seeing more.

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

Beautiful images, Alex!  Thanks for sharing, and Thanks to your friend too! 

Cheers,
Harry

Both photos one and two are first-class historical classics.
Bob

Those first 2 photos really capture the nitty gritty of SP passenger trains of the DJ Russel era.

1st photo image of the day.

Great material so far. Great that your friend  passed them on to you and they didn't get trashed!
Thanks for posting.
Odd horn there on 6035, appears to be a Nathan P3, rare as most of the PAs had M or P5 horns.
Regards, Jim Evans



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/25 08:21 by FiveChime.

Wow, they had a lot of faith in those Alcos at that late date. <G>

Victor Baird

Very enjoyable SP series!

Larry

Thanks for sharing these. What a great find. I love that afternoon light in the first shot. Very interesting views. 

They're all Kodachrome?

Guess Kodachrome II came out after 1958, but
you'd think ASA 10 would be enough to stop
102 better than that, since it's stopping.

Love those PAs.

Posted from iPhone

In that first shot, the building on the waterside behind train was still there up until they redeveloped that long block. Here's 1931, 1950, 1965 of that area. Allston is the road in middle perpendicular to tracks on the landside. 

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2019 and present day. I noticed at least one building trackside still there from 1931 at the foot of Allston. Davlin Coatings is the name on it these days. 

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The second photo is especially nice.

wabash2800 Wrote:
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> Wow, they had a lot of faith in those Alcos at
> that late date.
>
> Victor Baird

SP operated PAs until 1967.  SP, along with Santa Fe and Erie Lackawanna, was the last of the original PA owners to operate them.

 

FiveChime Wrote:

> Odd horn there on 6035, appears to be a Nathan P3,

I think you're right.  Here's a closer view: https://rapidotrains.com/media/images/Master_Class/23-Masterclass6.jpg