Interchanges: Valley Division Interchanges

One of the beauties of the North American rail network is the ease of transferring traffic between the different railroads throughout the continent allowing shipment of goods to nearly any rail user without having to transload from one conveyance to another.  Traffic carried by one road bound for a customer served by another was transferred between the carriers at listed interchange points. 

The following list are the interchange points between the Santa Fe and other railroads that were present on the Third and Oakland districts during the 1940’s as shown in the Official Railway Equipment Register or ORER for short.

Alameda (Alaska Basin)	Alameda Belt
Bakersfield	Southern Pacific Sunset
Barstow	Union Pacific
Empire	Modesto and Empire Traction
Fresno	Southern Pacific
Merced	Southern Pacific Yosemite Valley
Mojave	Southern Pacific
Oakdale	Sierra Southern Pacific (via Sierra)
Oakland	Howard Terminal (via SP) Oakland Terminal Sacramento Northern (40th Street) (via OT) Southern Pacific Western Pacific (via SP)
Pittsburg	Southern Pacific
Port Chicago	Baypoint & Clayton Sacramento Northern Southern Pacific
Richmond	Richmond Belt Southern Pacific
San Francisco	Northwestern Pacific (via State Belt) Southern Pacific State Belt (China Basin or Pier 43) Western Pacific
Stockton	Central California Traction Southern Pacific Stockton Terminal & Eastern (via CCT or WP) Tidewater Southern (via WP) Western Pacific
Tiburon	Northwestern Pacific
Visalia	Southern Pacific

                                                   

Three of these interchanges were via car float, Alameda Belt, State Belt Pier 43, and NWP Tiburon.  A great modeling use for the Richmond Ferry Point trackage, three railroads in three directions plus two additional Santa Fe destinations, San Francisco and Alice Street in Oakland. 

Stockton, my planned eastern staging yard is important not only as the next stop east on the Valley Division for online movements originating in Richmond, but it is the Santa Fe’s gateway to the Pacific Northwest and the Overland Route from the Bay area.  The friendly connection was with the WP routing WP Bieber GN to the northwest or WP Salt Lake City DRGW/UP east.  Stockton was also an interchange with archrival SP with routings of SP Portland NP to the northwest or SP Ogden UP east. 

More on the operation of the interchange at Port Chicago in my next post.

John Barry

Cotati, CA