| Posted by Kevin C. Gray, LS on December 26, 2006 | |
I am a railroad surveyor and while working for the Southern Pacific Transportation Co. and just before the UPRR merger, we built this bypass route through the West Oakland Yard, in West Oakland, California as part of the I-880 Relocation Project. This project was completed in conjunction with CalTrans. The Cypress Freeway had collapsed over Cypress Street (now Nelson Mandella Parkway) due to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and the new freeway's proposed route was right over the SP's Desert Yard, so we had to move the entire yard to the west. This bypass route the track takes now was actually completed in about 1998 if memory serves me correctly and by that time I was finishing the alignment layout work for the UPRR. In the background are the old SP diesel shops and behind them is the Big Valley Yard. Amtrak use to run all of its maintenance and repair out of this yard before the the SP's old Kirkham Yard was converted to the present Amtrak repair facility.
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