Nostalgia & History > San Francisco Belt Railroad Alco S2 23 working in SF 1977

San Francisco Belt Railroad Alco S2 number 23 running down North Point St, and later at Lombard St along the Embarcadero with the SF Belt enginehouse in the background.  Dec. 15, 1977.  Scanned from Kodacolor negatives.  - Eric Blasko
 

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Wonderful photos.  #2 shows  the side of Pier 35, the former passenger ship terminal rarely used nowadays but still there.  I worked at Pier 35 around this time and on Pier 33 there were railroad cars sitting precarariously on the track on the pier, including a former SP business car, the 'Sierra Nevada' I believe.  Even then, the pier looked like it would collapse into the Bay at any time, resting on rotting wood and pilings.  Then one day the cars were just gone.  

What would have been in the hopper?

It was going to the malt house and looking at Google sounds like malt is usually made from barley. Don't know more about it than that. 

Attaching a trackmap view of the malt house with a line leading to the roundhouse. Also a 1974 aerial mosaic detail of a passenger ship at Pier 35. 

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Thanks for posting. Great to see street running.

Bauer & Schweitzer Malting Company,
550 Mason Street. The last carload customer for the Belt Line in North Beach. The covered hoppers usually came by Santa Fe tug and barge from Richmond to San Francisco Pier 43 1/2.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/26 20:37 by RLcabin.

Love this thread! I started working in The City in 1998 and walked from the Embarcadero from the Ferry Building to Fishermans’s wharf to meet my family for dinner after interviewing for the job - which I fortunately got!

You could see some of the old freight tracks on the piers, but the F line extension along the Embarcadero was largely complete, except for all the fancy trackwork in front of the Ferry Building which took a few more years to finish.

I checked Google Maps and you can see the building on photo 1 plus the pier still today, only thing missing is the tracks and fabulous train.

While I enjoyed seeing and riding the F line, sure wish I been able to see the State Belt line before it disappeared. When did the State Belt stop running through there? I don’t remember seeing anything during our visits to Fisherman’s Wharf in the late 80’s / early 90’s.

Nathan

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In picture 3 AlcoRSD is at the corner of Lombard and Battery. The building on the left was a National Ice and Cold Storage warehouse and showed up in an episode of Streets of San Francisco. Picture from the episode attached. That episode was covered in this thread: https://cdn.trainorders.com/attachments/fullsize/1894000/5yw356j56j_69746ff5cdb1e.jpg

Comparing the screenshot to Alco's photo it looks like the warehouse was substantially restored at some point during the mid 70's.  

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Thanks to everyone for their informative comments!   I have a few more SF Belt pix to post, will do it today. - Eric Blasko

Thank you for posting these wonderful images!