OK, let me just say...that is really, really cool!
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Way cool.
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OK... is what you say when time stops for a second to gaze at the screen at absorb the scene and having said that, I'll echo Greg's comment above. I'll add, what a wild scene to model! Rarely it seems scenes like this are shared from the West Coast. Thanks Marty, for sharing Roger's works!
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| Posted by FSWood on August 2, 2017 | |
Took a moment to sort out whether that grey tower is on tug or carfloat; it is on carfloat.
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So the ATSF had to ferry cars across the San Francisco Bay? Does BNSF still do that in the Bay Area?
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Can anyone ID the boxcar on the left?
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A number of Railroads had tugs Southwest airline was started by the Santa to get its crews home
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| Posted by Tom on August 2, 2017 | |
Starting to scroll through the day's offerings on this website and this one definitely caught my eye. One of the best pictures I've seen, Marty.
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Thanks for showing us this wonderful shot of a bygone era. Bay area railroading less colorful and varied now.
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| Posted by Paul P on August 2, 2017 | |
You, as the photographer, should just be glad you were there to capture this. Outstanding image and more than that, a scene that will never be replicated.
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I had to check a map to get my bearings. Looks like the "back side" of the Tiburon peninsula in the background, and Roger was standing near the Point Richmond dock. 1972 was fairly late in the game, so I don't know whether the Santa Fe barges still served the NWP at Tiburon, probably not. The boxcars and their ownership suggests either paper or lumber headed for ATSF's San Francisco isolated industrial trackage. Not long after this picture was taken the SP started hauling the Santa Fe traffic to San Francisco and the barge operation was abandoned. Both the WP and ATSF had car barges/ferries to service industrial trackage in SF. Not only are the barges and ferries gone, but for the most part so is all the rail served industry and the tracks.
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| Posted by xBNSFer on August 3, 2017 | |
Santa Fe's Bay Area yard was in Richmond, CA and there San Francisco customers had to be served by car ferries; Santa Fe never had a direct rail connection into Oakland/San Francisco proper. BNSF today has trackage rights (received at the time of the UP-SP merger) to reach the Port of Oakland over UP. Car ferry service is long gone, with any rail served industry probably receiving its freight via trailers or (now more likely) containers trucked from the intermodal terminals - which would have been from the Santa Fe intermodal terminal at Richmond pre-1996, or (now) either from Richmond or brought into Oakland and trucked from there.
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I think service ended in 1984....
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I absolutely love & cherish this old photo. PCA for me. Roger was in the right place for this shot.
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| Posted by beano on April 20, 2022 | |
You hardly ever see that middle car in photos. It is a 40' grainer boxcar and they were very colorful and very unique just lika this picture. When the railroad commisioners decided to use the larger grain cars it put a lot of spurs and branchlines out of business because the rail was to light to safely hold them and some of the railroads at the time were not doing so well financially and mergers were just over the next hill and over the bridge thru the tunnel and the next crew change. Now I think Pennsylvania RR is the unknown boxcar up front. But that Santa Fe tug stow the show. Excaliber Marty. Kodachrome colours tue !
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