Railroaders' Nostalgia > Oakland Calif Industrial Switching Questions

Howdy

Within the HO portion of the model train club http://www.gsmrm.org/ho_scale/ we are modeling certain buildings, but we are lacking anecdotal information.  

The first picture shows the building at 2200 Adeline Street.  It has since been converted into lofts.  At one time it was a furniture factory.  That may have been at the same time that Capwell's owned it.  We've heard that it was a distribution warehouse for Capwell's.  What are your recollections of the place?

The second photo shows two buildings.  In the foreground is American Steel.  In the background is Pacific Pipe.  Both of the buildings have track inside running the length the buildings.  Other than the descriptive names of the businesses, we don't know much them.  Do you recall the SPINS number?  Their nicknames?  

The other buildings in the photos are just stand ins taking up empty space.  They will be removed once the building intended for that space is built. 

I’ll post other photos when I can. 

Several weeks ago an older visitor to the club pointed at American Steel, and exclaimed "Hey, I retired from there!"

Thank you for taking the time to read this.  We hope it brings back some good memories. 

ʎɹɹɐ˥



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/18 13:28 by Larry020.

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22nd & Adeline was switched by OT. Access by Key System B-line track.

Posted from Android

Pacific Pipe received loads of medium - large diameter pipe arriving in gondolas. I think the pipe was shipped out by truck (tractor + semi-trailer). They had 2 tall boomed rail cranes that had to negotiate some very sharp curvature trackage within their plant. The one time I saw it switched, the OT had spotted the loads on the north side of Grand Ave and one of the Pacific Pipe cranes came out of the plant, crossed Grand and pulled the cars back into their yard.

You might try a search here of “West Oakland Rails” from about a year ago. There’s 4-5 of the same name. Don’t know about the building on Adeline, but there are some shots of American Steel and Pacific pipe. They’re quite a bit bigger than your models... if accuracy is what you’re looking for. Either way, nice layout!

Walter

Posted from iPhone

Thanks for all of the responses, and especially the "West Oakland Rails" links. It a treasure of history of the area. We did a similar field trip on 10-12-14 rooting round from West Oakland up to Gillman St. to get ideas for our new switching area. We had detailed maps of the SP and SF industries, but not the OT. We knew about Shredded Wheat and the 2200 Adeline building, and was able to locate the others by just following the tracks. West Oakland still has many of the tracks in the area. Emeryville and Berkeley have done a lot to remove most evidence of rail service. The older photos of the industries is really helpful.

The new switching area was designed to be in the street rails, and a compilation of some of the most interesting industries of the SP, SF and OT in the area. Shredded Wheat, Pacific Pipe, American Steel, Union Ice, 2200 Adeline, Sherwin Williams, Truitt and White, Heinz and the curved building on 8th and Parker St. The buildings are being built to fit the area by one of our members, Jeff Robinson who is kit-bashing and scratch building many of the structures.

ʎɹɹɐ˥

22nd and Adeline, or 2200 Adeline is mentioned in “Some West Oakland Miscellany” here on TO. It is the former Sprouse Reitz wharehouse. Couple great shots of new & old in that post.

Walter

Posted from iPhone



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/18 14:17 by drumwrencher.

This image has been brought to my attention by a fellow club member. 

It's from the Western Railway Museum Archives. 

The Sprouse Rietz has also been listed as Capwells and the John Breuner Co. (11 in the image), dates of change unknown at this time.  The image is dated 29 March, 1930.

Do you know when the different companies moved in/out?

⅂ɐɹɹʎ



 

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If I'm not mistaken, the two peaked roof sheds on the Pacific Pipe site are the repurposed temporary train sheds constructed on the Key System Pier in the interim after the fire but before the Bridge Railway opened and the pier was abandoned.  Seems to me there is a reference to this on Harre Demorro's books on Key System.

ACF

A couple of years ago, there was a question about the time periods when the warehouse at 2200 Adeline was used by various firms. The building was constructed for the John Breuner Company in 1923-1924. In 1935, Sprouse-Reitz started leasing the building. In 1947, Capwells began leasing the building. 

https://books.google.com/books/content?id=-6heXNqwzyAC&pg=RA26-PA38&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U1-uibDa3e57flgITzY4XvyO_Y5yw&ci=698%2C340%2C278%2C221&edge=0

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/58876983/sprouse-reitz-oakland-plant/

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30372255/sprouse-rietz-warehouse-at-2200-adeline/