Nostalgia & History > Depot Friday: SP's isolated freight sheds

Looking through Southern Pacific valuation photos of stations, they appear to have had a lot of unmanned freight sheds out in the boonies.  Past Depot Fridays have featured Southern Pacific's tiny freight shed at Waverly, CA on the Milton Branch:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,5340253

And the open-air passenger and freight shelter at Richgrove, CA on the secondary line between Fresno and Famoso via Exeter:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,5657985,5658466#5658466

I'm still curious how these facilities were used.  I assume the crew of the local/mixed train would offload less-than-car-load shipments onto the freight dock and lock up valuable or weather-sensitive items in the shed, but then what?  Would the railroad notify the consignee (how?) and arrange to have a representative with the key meet them at the shed at an appointed time for pickup, or would the railroad provide delivery via wagon or later by truck from the shed to the shipment's ultimate destination?  

Here are a few more examples of SP freight sheds from the Western Railway Musem Archives:

1) Motion, CA, seen in this 1913 valuation photo, was at MP 268.0 on the Shasta Division main line along the Sacramento River north of Redding.  It was downstream of the future site of Shasta Dam, but when the dam was built and the main line relocated in the 1940's, freight business to this little shed evidently wasn't brisk enough to warrant retaining the line to Motion as a branch:  https://maps.app.goo.gl/9s7tJ4yRVQxV6JP78   

2) Arundel, CA was MP 148.8 on the San Joaquin Division's Oakdale Branch, a line that wandered east from Stockton and then turned south through Oakdale, Waterford, and Montpellier before reconnecting with the main line at Merced: https://maps.app.goo.gl/1H8yc5kURd6kQHo56  The shed at Arundel featured a covered freight dock, but even that perquisite wasn't enough to entice the freight shippers.  SP turned the Oakdale Branch into a genuine branch by ripping up the bit from Montpellier through Arundel to Merced in 1942, the year after Al Rose photographed the shed standing idle beside the weed-eaten tracks. 

3) Unlike the other stations in this thread, Delavan, CA, on the Sacramento Division's West Valley sub, did have a manned freight agency into the 1940's but didn't have a combination depot to house it.  The LCL enjoyed the luxury of a purpose-built freight shed, while the humans had to make do with a repurposed carbody.  This is another 1913 company valuation photo.  SP's timetables and the sign on the building spells it Delavan, but old topo maps and modern Google Maps show it as Delevan: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ovm2hfidyz2cfWV28



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/25 20:57 by Evan_Werkema.

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Very interesting photographs, which amaze me that they were ever even taken. Your questions about getting the freight to its appointed destination are not likely to ever be answered, considering it is now close to a century since the structures were last used. I think we would be hard pressed to find anyone with a memory of even having heard how the freight was handled at the end. But I have serious doubts that SP arranged any trucking as a final method of delivery. 

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
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> 1) Motion, CA, seen in this 1913 valuation photo,
> was at MP 268.0 on the Shasta Division main line
> along the Sacramento River north of Redding.  It
> was downstream of the future site of Shasta Dam,
> but when the dam was built and the main line
> relocated in the 1940's, freight business to this
> little shed evidently wasn't brisk enough to
> warrant retaining the line to Motion as a
> branch: 
> https://maps.app.goo.gl/9s7tJ4yRVQxV6JP78   

The old main line was retained as the Keswick Branch after the new main line opened. In the timetable the branch extended as far as Coram, which was just below Shasta Dam. SP applied to the ICC to abandon the entire branch in 1947, when the smaller Keswick Dam, downstream of Shasta Dam, was nearing completion. In 1949 the application to abandon the branch was effectively denied in that the SP was required to maintain service to the Mountain Copper Company. MoCoCo did its business at Matheson (a bit south of Motion), and several options for maintaining the service were discussed in the ICC proceedings. See 271 ICC 531 for a discussion of the branch's history and traffic and the proposed options for maintaining the service (pages 531 through 540): https://www.google.com/books/edition/Interstate_Commerce_Commission_Reports/pOXveCDmdRQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA531

The branch was renamed the Matheson Branch at some point, and evidently the "proposed relocation entirely on the west side of the river" (page 538 in the above reference) was constructed to get around Keswick Dam. The route is easily visible on aerial photos and is also shown here: https://www.abandonedrails.com/keswick-branch

The discussion in the ICC docket makes it sound like most of the traffic was from Matheson, so I'm not sure how much traffic there was north of there. I wonder if the 25,000 tons of flue dust at Coram was ever profitably marketed. In any event, Motion remained as an "additional station" up through Shasta Division employee timetable No. 68 in 1960. As far as the employee timetables go, the branch was truncated to Matheson as of No. 69 on April 30, 1961. The station index card for Motion shows that it was abandoned November 1, 1960: https://archive.org/details/cscrm_000658/page/n11/mode/1up

Of course, who knows when the structure was removed. This is not addressed in the references mentioned above. One other interesting detail, per the index card, is that Motion was known as Copley until December 1907.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/25 01:15 by Sobrante.

Interesting, thanks.

Thanks for the Motion photo. I'd ridden the bike trail from Redding a number of times and wondered what was at both Matheson and Motion.
And thanks Sobrante for the ICC abandonment report. Seemed like there was positive cashflow from the mine to justify retaining it and enough business reasons from the pyrite loads to keep it active. 

The mountains to the west of Shasta Dam have a jaded history due to the 'hardrock mining' in the area. Not sure of the connection with actual traffic on the branch but there was active mining in the area into the 1960's. The area became a Superfund site in the 1980's and has active remediation and 'discovery' at this time under the general description of Iron Mountain, prompted by numerous fish-kills in the Sacramento River. Information about the west side is elusive, some info has been re-discovered in the Redding Historical Society Archives.

It's interesting to hear some of the early stories and see actual photos, sometimes pastoral and sometimes scary mining and belch-fire smelter stuff.

For those really into the history of the area here's an interesting document, not really morning coffee reading:

https://www.csus.edu/college/social-sciences-interdisciplinary-studies/environmental-studies/_internal/_documents/iron-mountain-the-history-and-complications-in-metal-ore-mining,-remediation-and-reclamation-of-a-national-superfund-site---frank-william-mammano.pdf

Evidence of the remediation, the removal of vegatation and channeling of drainage can be seen from Interstate 5. Google maps also shows multiple and colorful holding ponds on the hillside above Keswick dam.

t4p.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/25 09:23 by TCnR.

Arundel rings a bell but I can't seem to remember what line that was.

Out 

Great question about access to these sheds. I've wondered the same thing at times when I come across photos of the sheds on the NWP. And I have the same question for boxcars on team tracks. Kids would occasionally pilfer boxcars of liquor or wine. There were a couple articles in the local paper I came across on that. Also heard a story from a fellow who grew up in Novato about the pilfering of a car at the Ignacio team track that was installed after the depot was razed. The pilferers were high school students and started retailing the liquor to their classmates, accepting credit probably to move the product as quickly as possible as they probably didn't have any place to store it discreetly. The use of credit led to the development of a debt collection side of the business with which the story teller had the unpleasant experience of having to interact.

Anyways, the security measures couldn't have been too great on the boxcars of liquor. Would have they have used seals which would have required maybe bolt cutters and a ladder or something and the consignee would just cut these to access the interior? 

 

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/25 12:51 by phthithu.

callum_out Wrote:

> Arundel rings a bell but I can't seem to remember what line that was.

Arundel, CA was MP 148.8 on the San Joaquin Division's Oakdale Branch, a line that wandered east from Stockton and then turned south through Oakdale, Waterford, and Montpellier before reconnecting with the main line at Merced: https://maps.app.goo.gl/1H8yc5kURd6kQHo56

Sobrante Wrote:

> The old main line was retained as the Keswick Branch after the new main line opened.

Thanks for the detailed correction - interesting history.  I should have studied the timetables more thoroughly.

On the Motion shed, what are we to make of the new paint rising up to about 6 feet neat and level and the old paint left above it. Was the lower part of the shed more vulnerable to the weather and they saved a bit of money on not painting the entire thing? Was no ladder available and regulations required paint only go so high in that situation?  

Here's the San Clemente shed and passenger shelter. A picture of a car on the house track circa1908. 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/25 23:30 by phthithu.

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phthithu Wrote:

> On the Motion shed, what are we to make of the new
> paint rising up to about 6 feet neat and level and
> the old paint left above it. Was the lower part of
> the shed more vulnerable to the weather and they
> saved a bit of money on not painting the entire thing? 

SP used to paint the lower six feet or so of their buildings with paint impregnated with sand, supposedly to discourage the graffiti of the era - people with pocket knives carving into the paint/wood.  You can see a bit of that on the Motion freight dock at lower left, and the Richgrove shelter also shows the scars of "tagging," see below.  Sand in the paint would rapidly ruin the knives.  At Motion, one might guess that they most recently repainted the lower part of the building with the sand/paint mixture but didn't get around to doing the upper walls with plain old paint.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/25 03:31 by Evan_Werkema.

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Checking around the web and then looking at Google Map there is a location called Motion Creek on the rail to trail alongside the River.

The Mines mentioned apparently shipped out of the location called Matheson, also on the modern maps, apparently to Selby. Haven't found much mention of rail traffic or volume. the Iron Mountain Mines, also other names, shipped into the early 1960's. The branch or original mainline can be seen near the south end of the giant Redding trestle over the Sacramento River where it had been the original roW through Redding and to the south.

fwiw interesting to check around for the location of Motion and the route of the old main.

+ the location and siding of Motion is mentioned quite a few times in Signor's Shasta Division book with a few photos, but not of the freight shed.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/25 08:25 by TCnR.

That's a lucky man in car 4821!