LCL at Richmond and the Third District

.

West bound LCL arrived in the Bay Area from the east and southern California in through cars for Oakland or San Francisco with 3-5 cars scheduled to Oakland and 18-21 cars scheduled to San Francisco daily.  10 of those SF cars came from Corwith in Chicago.  Cars arriving Barstow on schedule 31 had a connection with schedule 43 to Richmond.  Other cars may have been placed on the NCX or EFX depending on when they arrived Barstow.  I’ll have to dig deeper into the schedules.  Richmond was the terminus for the Stockton West Way Peddler car that served the Third District via Freight Schedule 83 or an extra west.  One car a day arrived from Fresno on schedule 43.  Richmond originated 2 cars, one each for Oakland and San Francisco.  They may have used the inbound Fresno car for the Oakland load as it had freight for Oakland as well, but it was not carded as a through car.  The Fresno car for SF went directly to the car float and on to SF without trans loading at Richmond.  The Richmond-SF car also carried freight for the NWP, WP north of Oroville, points in Oregon and Washington, and points via Chicago.  A drum of chemicals from Dow in Pittsburg destined to Delaware would have begun its journey with a round trip to San Francisco in a box car by barge. 

Eastbound, 5 cars moved through Richmond from Oakland or San Francisco and were entrained on the SCX without stopping at the Freight House each day except Sunday, with an additional car from San Francisco carded directly to the Erie in Chicago three days a week.  Oak-3 picked up freight for Bakersfield, Oak-4, Fresno, SF-1-Kansas City; SF-2-Albuquerque; SF-3-San Diego; SF-4-Los Angeles; SF-8-Stockton; SF-9-Merced; SF-10-Modesto each day.  Inbound Oakland cars 1, 2 and 5 were consolidated with the SF cars. SF-12-Fresno Perishable, operated Mon-Wed-Thurs; SF-13-Merced perishable, operated on Monday.  These cars were also scheduled out on the SCX which left Richmond nightly at 9 PM. 

SF-5-"San Pablo & East", peddled via barge at Alice Street, offloaded SF traffic for Richmond to Oakland and continued east on 84 as a peddler car.  SF-7-Pittsburg, took freight for the Sacramento Northern to the interchange at Port Chicago.  It also departed on 84.

In any case, loading at the Freight House had to cease early enough for the cars to be switched into their outbound trains, probably and hour or two prior to the scheduled departure. 

Quite a few years ago, before Russell Crump passed, I downloaded a copy of Santa Fe System Circular 231, Red Ball Freight Schedules 1942-44 from his ATSFRY website.  I formatted the information pertinent to the Valley division into a time table like spread sheet.  Little did I know then, that this information derived from Keith Jordan’s Circular 235 LCL Schedules http://www.atsfrr.org/resources/KJordan/LCL1946.pdf would dovetail with something I’ve had for ten years or so. 

                                                     

This is only a portion of the schedule for the Valley, but has the through connections.  Keep in mind that this is a service schedule only and conveys no authority to occupy a main track.  That would have been done by operating these schedules as either an extra train via train orders, or using one of the second class freight schedules, all westward trains in my 1944 modeling year.  Thanks to Russell and Keith, with some good guidance from Steve Sandifer, I now can accurately replicate the Freight House and LCL operations at Richmond.  As an added bonus, this gives me a steady source of barge traffic for my car float operation.

John Barry

Cameron Park, CA

Meat Cars on the third district

I'm going out on a limb and ordering two of the new GAC meet reefers that Rapido has just released.

I am not aware of any packing houses in the area that I model from Middle River to just RR west of Richmond, but there were a number of houses in South San Francisco, AKA Butcher Town.  I plan to put them into LCL service dropping off cut meat to customers in the Valley served by the Santa Fe. The cars will be handed over from the SP and transit my layout on a Pink Perishable SP waybill east bound and return on a Green ATSF Meat Card Waybill.   Here are a couple of examples that I've filled in.

This first card shows a return to South San Francisco via the SP at SF and the Santa Fe at China Basin.  Someone at Western Meat must have gotten a good bottle of scotch to specify such a short haul on the SP.  But it does bring a meat reefer onto my layout at Richmond via the car float.

The second card represents a longer SP haul, but risks the car getting delayed in the bay area congestion.

Swift also had a plant in SSF, but I didn't discover that until after I purchased my cars.

John Barry
Cameron Park, CA

Brass and plastic Locos for Sale

5 April update.  Prices reduced.

John


The time has come to rationalize my collection.  I model the west end of the Santa Fe in 1944 fudging out to 50 or so and have built up a goodly collection of brass steam that actually ran there in my era.  With that, I find that I don't need the Alco PA set, the Northerns, the 1480 Atlantic that I thought was a 1400 when I got it, the NYO&W Mountain I bought from Mr Kim at the Daeki factory in 1985 in Seoul or the foobies of my youth.

If any of these will aid you in your recreation of history, they are in need of a good home and would be happy to make them yours.  Shipping via USPS Priority mail at cost from 95682.  Please contact me at NorthBayLines@att.net or 707-490-9696.

John Barry
Cameron Park, CA

Brass

Nickel Plate Products

New York Ontario & Western

Y-2 Class 4-8-2

$550

Purchased 1985 at the Daeki factory in Seoul, ROK
Displayed on mantle for two years, never run

 Key

Santa Fe 3751 Class 4-8-4 Original

Not currently available

Purchased from Jay Miller
Never run by me

Surplus to me as it did not run on the Third District Valley Division in this configuration in my time frame.

NJ Custom Brass

Santa Fe 1480 Class 4-4-2

$250

NJCB mislabled the box as a 1400 class but it really is the 1480 class per Redding's ATSF Brass guide.
Purchased from Trains West in Albuquerque the day before I purchased the Guide from Allied Model Trains.

Note the drive rod connected to the second driver as opposed to the first on the Key model shown below.  This is a beautiful piece, but not what was used as the back up power for the Golden Gate trains.  That is the specific purpose I purchased this for and it is surplus as it is the incorrect class.

NOT FOR SALE     TRADE ONLY

Key 1400 Class Unpainted
1 of 10 Unpainted
This is the loco that I thought I was getting from the NJCB for sale above.  I OPERATE so a painted version would be better for me.  I now have two Unpainted ones or 20% of the total imported, two of my operating friends have two more or 40% of the limited editions.  All of us would prefer the more common painted version to decal and run.  Willing to trade a collector for an operable painted version.

NJ Custom Brass with Balboa tender
Santa Fe 1800 Class 2-6-2
No Box

SOLD

Not run by me
Surplus as not a 3rd District Valley Div engine in my time frame.

PFM

Santa Fe 3800 Class 2-10-2
Painted AT&SF 3800, weathered

$250

Surplus, not used on the Third District
Not run by me, purchased used in Ohio circa 1986

PFM

Santa Fe 3800 Class 2-10-2 No Box

Painted AT&SF 4000
$200

Surplus, not used on the Third District
Not run by me, purchased used in Ohio circa 1986

PFM

Santa Fe 4101 Class 2-8-4

$2500

Surplus, not used on the Third District
Not run by me, purchased used in Ohio circa 1986























PFM

Santa Fe 3776 Class 4-8-4

$400

Plastic Steam

Mehano

Santa Fe 1337 Class 4-6-2

Valley Flyer

$35

Mantua from kit

Santa Fe 2-8-2

$25

Tyco

Santa Fe 0-8-0

$10

Plastic Diesel

AHM

Santa Fe GP-18 2654

$15

Pemco

Alco 430 Santa Fe 8731

$15

Tyco

Santa Fe 5268 R&S Warbonnet GP-20

$10

 AHM Unpowered

RDG 266 FM C-Liner

$5

SP Baldwin Shark

$8

Athearn Blue Box

Santa Fe 5036 SD40-2

$35

Athearn Blue Box

Santa Fe PA-PB-PA

A units powered B unit unpowered

$50

Athearn Blue box 

Santa Fe F7A NMRA
F7B KDs
both unpowered 

$10

AHM

Santa Fe FM C-Liner

A-B-A Set

A units powered B unit unpowered

$10

Athearn Blue Box

Stripped GP 9 shell

$3

Freight Cars: Modeler’s resources for Reading Cars

Why does a Santa Fe Modeler care about a Reading car?  Where can he find info on one that he does find interesting?  Stuff comes from other places, shippers load that stuff in box cars, those box cars are what’s available where the stuff is being shipped.  In my case, WWII is using everything that can turn a wheel and then some.  Lots of foreign cars will be in the area you model.  Sometimes you find a picture that shows one of these foreign cars.  I just recently found some photos of Valley Division subjects for sale on eBay.  One of the photos showed a portion of a Reading box car with the dimensional data clearly visible. 

Those Data are:

Height	12 – 2
Width	9 – 10
Inside Length	36 – 2
Inside Width	8 - 7
Inside Height	8 – 1
Cubic Feet	2515
Repack Date	7-26-41

I looked in the 1953 ORER and discovered two series of box cars that match this data, 4000-4999 and 10500-11549.  From the photo, these are class XMr.

  

An inquiry to the STMFC yahoo group led to a couple of references to a website devoted to the Reading with lots of information.  http://www.readingmodeler.com

When you open up the modeling references and drill down to the box car page you click on the XMr class and are rewarded with a highly detailed PDF at http://www.readingmodeler.com/images/rollingstock/boxcar/XMr.pdf

Compiled by John W. Hall, this document gives you the number of cars in service each year, details of what kind of roof, ends, doors and trucks were used.  And if you keep scrolling (the document is 87 pages) you come to a section that lists the build and retired dates by car number.  So, from this source, I see that I have a choice of nearly all car numbers in both series that were operating in my modeling era.  From John’s freight car data, our car had ARCH BAR trucks, was 85,000# 2515 Cu.Ft. capacity, had a Double Sheathed Wood Body, Steel Underframe, Murphy Steel Ends and a 6' wide door.  Built with Wood Roof and Wood Doors, many replaced in late 20's and early 30's with Steel Roof and Steel Doors.  It was 37'11" over end sills.  So far, I have not found a kit of the XMr, but according to a STMFC post, Funaro & Camerlengo may produce one if they can get 100 pre-orders.  Failing that, one could fudge the similar XMp kit that they produce that is the same inside length but 4 inches longer over the end sills.  

You would have to be careful to choose a car modified with the steel roof and Ajax brake wheel, but you could have a credible model.  And all this from a set of dimensional data in a picture of a Santa Fe Consolidation in Richmond.

John Barry

Cameron Park, CA

Industries at Pittsburg

This city will be one of the LDEs on the North Bay Lines.  Thanks to the San Jose Public Library, I was able to obtain a PDF set of the Sanborn Maps for Pittsburg and the other cities on the Valley Division.

The following is a list of industries taken from the Sanborn index map with the sheet number where they are found.  Not included in this list is Camp Stoneman, the Army's personnel depot for the Pacific Theater in WWII.  All Army troops bound for the Pacific got their final outprocessing there before they boarded ships in San Francisco or Oakland to make the long journey overseas.  More on Camp Stoneman in future posts.

Map     Pittsburg Industries      

           

2          Pioneer Dairy Company           

NRS

             

2          Standard Fisheries       

NRS

3          San Francisco International Fish Company       

NRS

4          F. E. Booth Company, Cannery           

235 East 1st Street

NRS waterfront

             

4          Johns-Mannville, Inc. Warehouse         

NRS

4          A. Paladini Fish Company        

397 East First Street

            NRS waterfront

           

4          San Joaquin Fish Company      

           

4          Western California Fish Company        

            299 East 1st Street

            NRS waterfront

6          Coast Counties Gas & Electric Company         

             

6          Pittsburg Soda Works 

8          Texaco Oil Company, Bulk oil station  

             

8          California Bean Growers Ware House Corporation,     

             

8          California Scrap Iron Corporation        

8          Johns-Mannville, Inc.

           

11        Coca Cola Supply Depot         

           

12        Pacific Public Service, office & shop    

             

12        River Lines, freight depot         

              

12        Seger Trucking Company        

15        Gladding McBean & Company, Fire brick Factory

            Stockton Fire Brick Company, Plant No. 3                              

            On SP

             

15        Union Ice Company     

            Pittsburg Ice & Fuel Company

            1081-1095 Railroad Ave.

             

16        C. A. Hooper & Company, Ware house          

16        Standard Oil Company of California Pipe Line Dept.    

           

19        Diamond Building Materials     

             

19        Redwood Manufacturing Company Inc.           

             

20        Columbia Steel Corporation     

             

20        National Chemical Company of California

                         

20        H. F. Lauritzen, ship repair yard & machine works       

             

20        Coast Counties Gas Company 

20        Union Oil Company of California         

                         

21        Pioneer Rubber Mills of California Inc. 

             

22        Great Western Electro Chemical Company (Dow)  

Other sources of industry information include city directories, the OPSIG shipper data base, and Santa Fe CLICK books and track charts.  More from those sources in future posts as well.

John Barry

Cameron Park, CA

      

Interline Codes

What are they, and where can you find them?

Here’s an example page of the 1950 AAR Interline Accounting Codes from a document Tony Thompson has posted via his Blog, http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/08/railway-accounting-code-numbers.html

I refer you to his most excellent post on what they are, how they came about, and what the modeler can use them for.

What I offer in today’s post is an excel spreadsheet that makes them easy to find.  Tony was gracious to send me the complete 1950 list and I found a copy of the 1920 version in Google Docs.  That was great, but I model 1944, and there were some big differences between the two, with many roads added and others deleted.  A few even changed code numbers.  And there were also a couple of duplicate numbers.  All that is in the notes in my spread sheet.  It has a combined listing with the 1920 and 1950 numbers in columns on the left and other work sheets that show the 1920, 1950, and 1944 lists.  Whoa, 1944, how’d he get that you ask?  Well given that it doesn’t exist, but I needed it, I interpolated and combined the lists that do exist to come up with a reasonable list as it probably existed during the war.

Those roads and codes that appeared in both AAR lists were easy, they are in my 44 list.  But what about those that appear in one but not the other?    I used my 1943 and 1945 copies of the Official Railway Equipment Register.  If a new road was in the 50 list, I checked 43 to see if it existed in 1944.  In the 43 ORER and on the 50 list, it got included in my 44 list.  Then I looked at the ones that didn’t make it to 1950.  If they were in the 45 ORER, they too made the list for 44.  That left a surprisingly few number of discrepancies.  I made some arbitrary decisions; B&O Chicago Terminal retains 51, next to its parent B&O 50 rather than the 1950 code of 64.  109 is Clinchfield, rather than the older Carolina, Clinchfield and Gulf.  Reading is 623, from the 1920 Philadelphia  and Reading.  I might be wrong about those interpretations, so I welcome feedback.  There are a few other oddities that I documented.

And for my modeling, I need four different Santa Fe headers for my waybills.  Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, 22, ATSF, for lines east of Albuquerque; Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, Coast Lines 30, ATCL, for lines west of Albuquerque; Panhandle & Santa Fe, 617, PSF, for the lines in Texas on the Slaton and Plains Divisions (around Amarillo); and Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe, 315, GCSF, for the rest of the Texas lines.  In practical terms, I’ll originate all my traffic on ATCL, 30 headed waybills, as well as any perishable traffic from southern California.  Helium cars will arrive on PSF, 617 headed waybills, cars from Houston or Dallas will be on GCSF, 315 headers.  And the LCL cars out of Corwith for San Francisco will be on ATSF, 22 waybills. 

Enjoy making more accurate paperwork.  You can find the sheet in excel 2003 format here:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Ussn0SB6pfSE5UZzVxa1VsMEU/edit?usp=sharing

1973 Santa Fe Instructions for Barge Loading

I recently received the loan of a 1973 Valley Division Bulletin Book from John Berry.  What follows is an extract of the bulletins applicable to the geographic area at Richmond found on pages 85-87.

3.  PULLING AND LOADING BARGES: Following instructions will govern:

Engine Foremen are responsible for proper lining up of tracks on apron and barge.

The automatic air must be coupled up and working on al1 switch movements on and off barges, the only exception permissible will be when car with defective air brake will be set out.

Pulling or loading barges at Santa Fe landings - Engine Foremen must double on and double off with all loaded cars, except solid barge loads of merchandise cars.

Engine Foremen will stand on bow of barge at coupling of apron when pulling and loading to observe clearances, and must see that all members of his crew are in proper position at all times to pass signals.

Speed must not be greater than two miles per hour with car movements on aprons and barges.

Foremen will be particular in sizing up the cars to be loaded on barge in connection with excess width cars, cars with leaning roofs, doors bulging, and when necessary, make switch so leaning roof or bulging side will be on outside of the barge.

When necessary to shove rear cars on track hard up to stern block, Foreman will notify bargeman, who in turn will mark boat list accordingly for information of Forman of location pulling barge.

The switchmen at all Santa Fe landings and bargemen .at other landings will set sufficient hand brakes on each track, hand brake must not be released on track to be pulled on barge until coupling has been made.

Captains are responsible for proper and safe trimming of barges; Engine Foremen will make any changes found necessary at Captain’s request.

Triple loads of piling, timbers, pipe, structural steel or other commodities in open top cars loaded on barges must be loaded on center track.

When pulling cars from barges at Ferry Point and China Basin, Engine Foreman will observe barge and apron when the first pull is being made from the, port side to see that excessive list does not develop and damage the apron. If necessary, leave several . cars on the port side, and after pulling cars from starboard (right): side double back and finish pulling cars from port side (left). Captains of tugs can help in this by notifying Boat Dispatcher whenever heavy loads are to be unloaded.

Maximum Single Loads on Bay Area Ferry aprons -China Basin and Ferry Point No. 1 aprons designed for Cooper’s E-60, which is equivalent to total load of 600,000 pounds distributed over the 100 ft. length of apron. These aprons now restricted to maximum single load of 526,000 pounds. Before approving any overload on the aprons should let Mechanical Department say what would be maximum load could move from apron to barge with safety. Ferry Point apron No. 2 restricted to maximum single load of 350,000 pounds.

There is fence with gate at Ferry Point located across tracks leading to apron No. 1.  It will be the responsibility of the Engine Foreman to see that these gates are kept closed and locked with switch lock at all times when barges are not being worked, and it will also be his responsibility to see that gates when they are open arc locked: in gatekeepers so that gates will not swing into moving cars. Boat flats, when not being used, are to be left in the clear of fire road at all times.

Engines - San Francisco -Ferry Point, Slips Nos. 1& 2: At China Basin and: Ferry Point Slips Nos. 1 and 2, orange clearance line has been painted 10 feet from nose end apron opposite sign attached to gallows frame reading:

"ENGINES MUST NOT OPERATE BEYOND THIS LINE”

In other words, live engine may be operated on apron and in most cases only one idler will be required to load and unload barge.

Mechanical reefers -with motors running will be placed on outside track of barge away from wheel house.

In loading passenger cars and passenger express box cars on barges, Engine Foreman must see that rear ca r on starboard, port and center tracks does not contact stern block on track. This to avoid damage to steam hose equipment.

Foreign and: system gondolas arriving Terminal Division with hand brake wheel and ratchet installed on outside wall on end of car must be loaded on starboard or port side barge with brake wheel on outside, as will not clear cars on center track.

When loading barges and have any 50-feet or longer cars first out on either port or starboard side, see that they are left either on straight track or just in the clear on the bowl so that joints can be made when tying on to unload barges.

Cars with plug doors and mechanical reefers must not be loaded: on barges with doors open.

Whenever switch crews are pulling a barge at a Santa Fe landing when we have an extreme low tide, after pulling the port and starboard side, will set out all cars and come back against the middle rail with boat flats only.

4.         LOW CLEARANCE CARS: all mechanical-l reefers have diesel tanks underneath car which have extremely low clearance and Santa Fe hopper cars, Series 300,000, have dumps which have extremely low clearance under car.

When loading these cars during high or low tide, be careful to see they do not drag between apron and barge.

Account curvature of outside rail on barge, all equipment having length of 70 feet or more should be loaded on center rail of barge.

5.         LOADING SHPX TANK CARS ON BARGE: SHPX tank cars in Series 12,000 are all 60-foot cars. When loading on barges handle on middle rail only.

6.         CARS PROPERLY TURNED FOR UNLOADING:  We receive numerous cars in San Francisco which reach Terminal Division placarded to unload from one side. Frequently a car so placarded reaches final destination with 'wrong, door toward: platform, necessitating that car be switched out and returned to Richmond: for turning.  All concerned will please give special attention to this feature and see that cars are properly turned: before loading on barges to avoid: the necessity for returning the cars to Richmond for turning eliminating unnecessary' delay attached to the loading.