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yard facilities

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  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: Martinez, CA
  • 5,440 posts
yard facilities
Posted by markpierce on Saturday, November 15, 2008 7:56 PM

In responding to another thread, I referred to an article (SP Historical & Technical Society's Winter 1999 SP Trainline magazine) on the rural Dunsmuir, CA 1960s diesel fuel and sand facilities on the former Southern Pacific.  Included in the article is a 1960 track plan for the northern end of the yard (which doesn't include the turntable, roundhouse, Mallet house, depot, etc.)

I find the various identified facilities to be of interest.  Most were expected; some were not.  They included torpedo house, oil shed, coal shed, caboose supply, ice house, caboose track, yard office, switch shanty, crew dispathers & engineman's locker room, fueling platform, diesel shop, sand storage tank, sand unloading hopper, store, roundhouse office, carpenter, metal & brass, fuel car track and unloaders, lumber shed, car repair tracks, diesel fuel tank and containment dike, pump house, car foreman's office, wheel tracks, section quarters, snow fighting equipment storage track, and relief outfit storage grack.

If your yard facilities appear a bit boring, you now have little excuse.

Mark

  • Member since
    February 2002
  • From: PtTownsendWA
  • 1,445 posts
Posted by johncolley on Sunday, November 16, 2008 7:40 AM

Something to add to that list: Car Inspector's/Oiler's locker, washroom and lunchroom may all be one. Back in late '50's Oakland, CA ours was an old passenger car set on ground with no trucks. Carmen had to wait for a train to be made up to inspect, oil, and set up initial air charge and test, and also had to inspect incoming trains for BO's and bleed the air before the yardbirds could classify them. There was a lot of idle time! John Colley, Port Townsend, WA

jc5729
  • Member since
    July 2006
  • From: Austin, TX
  • 462 posts
Posted by 4merroad4man on Sunday, November 16, 2008 8:39 AM

John,

By the 70's when I got there, the coach was gone and the car knockers were over in the switchman's shanty and in the metal buildings between the coach yard and the cab track.

Down in the Homestead, they wound up on the west end of the yard building.  Out in the Desert, they were over at the cleanouts near Track 25.

Evolution........

Serving Los Gatos and The Santa Cruz Mountains with the Legendary Colors of the Espee. "Your train, your train....It's MY train!" Papa Boule to Labische in "The Train"

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