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

Shippers: Lawrence Warehouse Co. Richmond CA

The Valley Division Third and Oakland Districts were and remain home to a diverse cross section of industrial America ranging from steel mills auto plants and oil refineries to small machine shops.  They were also one of Santa Fe’s gateways to the Pacific.

I’ve just spent a couple days doing research at the regional office of the National Archives in San Bruno, CA.  Here is some of what I learned so far from looking at their holdings. RG129 are the records of the Office of Defense Transportation, and I was looking at the regional files of the Liquids Transport Department and what follows is gleaned from those files.  More information is held in the main archive sites in College Park, MD  but I am here in CA.

During WWII, you would think that all of the shipping traffic was to support the US drive across the Pacific to defeat Japan, and most of that traffic was.  But there remained a component of coastal shipping that operated along the Pacific coast and rivers to move bulk traffic.  But there was a third component, trade with our Allies and neutral countries.  Lawrence Warehouse Company with a tank farm in Richmond’s inner harbor area was engaged in that little known third area.  What’s more, the trade they engaged in was with the Russians using Soviet flagged tankers.  When you thought of trade with the Soviets during WWII, you thought of large convoys from the eastern seaboard battling through German attempts to interdict them on their way to Murmansk or Archangel.  Or through the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf and by rail across what would become Iran.  But Russian tankers called at Richmond in San Francisco Bay to load alcohol.  Vessels that I’ve seen identified include the Stalin and the Sakhalin.  I’ve not yet identified their Russian destinations, but I am speculating that their neutrality with Japan allowed them to use Vladivostok at the eastern end of the trans-Siberian railway.  All of that is background as to why Lawrence Warehouse was receiving and stockpiling hundreds of thousands gallons of alcohol shipped to them in rail cars.  The SP as well as the ATSF served them directly and gave them options for on-line shipping.  The alcohol was owned by the Defense Supply Corporation or DSC.  I THINK that was a government agency set up for the war effort.  I also THINK that they provided the alcohol to the Russians under the Lend-Lease program. 

But what have I found that relates to modeling the Santa Fe?  The Lawrence Warehouse Co. received alcohol from the following shippers using the routings listed.  Note that United Distilleries shipped cars for both SP and ATSF delivery. 

Shipper	Origin	Routing	Commodity
American Distilling Co.	Pekin, Ill.	ATSF	Alcohol
B.C. Distillery Co	New Westminster, B. C.	GN Bieber WP Skn ATSF	Alcohol
Farm Crops Processing Co.	Omaha, Neb.	CB&Q Den DRGW SLC WP Skn ATSF	Alcohol
Hedgeside Distilling Co.	Napa, Cal.	SP	Alcohol
Lac Chemicals	Culver City, Cal.	PE SP	Alcohol
Puget Sound Pulp & Timber Co	Bellingham Wash	GN Bieber WP Skn ATSF	Alcohol
United Distilleries Ltd.	Marpole, B. C.	V&LI New Westminster BC ELECTRIC Sumas NP Portland SP Skn ATSF	Alcohol
United Distilleries Ltd.	Marpole, B. C.	V&LI New Westminster BC ELECTRIC Sumas NP Portland SP	Alcohol

And this is where they sent their empties:

Consignee	Destination	Routing	Commodity
Humble Oil Refining Corp.	Baytown, Tex.	ATSF Hou MP	Mty for loading LCN alcohol
Puget Sound Pulp & Timber Co	Bellingham Wash	ATSF Skn WP Bieber GN	Mty for loading LCN alcohol
Lac Chemicals	Culver City, Cal.	SP PE	Mty for loading LCN alcohol
Humble Oil Refinery	Johnsue, Tex.	ATSF Temple MKT	Mty for loading LCN alcohol
United Distilleries Ltd.	Marpole, B. C.	SP Portland NP Sumas BC ELECTRIC New Westminster V&LI	Mty for loading LCN alcohol
United Distilleries Ltd.	Marpole, B. C.	ATSF Skn SP Portland NP Sumas BC ELECTRIC V&LI	Mty for loading LCN alcohol
Hedgeside Distilling Co.	Napa, Cal.	SP	Mty for loading LCN alcohol
B.C. Distillery Co	New Westminster, B. C.	ATSF Skn WP Bieber GN	Mty for loading LCN alcohol
El Dorado Oil Works	Oakland, Cal.	SP	Mty for loading LCN alcohol
Farm Crops Processing Co.	Omaha, Neb.	ATSF Skn WP SLC DRGW Den CB&Q	Mty for loading LCN alcohol
Western Vegetable  Oil Co.	Outer Harbor, Oakland, Cal.	SP	Mty for loading LCN alcohol
American Distilling Co.	Pekin, Ill.	ATSF	Mty for loading LCN alcohol
Derby Oil Co	Wichita, Kan	ATSF	Mty for loading LCN alcohol

Why aren’t the shippers and consignees balanced?  Because cars got diverted out of alcohol service to ship other commodities.  And this is not a complete list either as I have not fully reviewed today’s data haul and Lawrence Warehouse might have handled other commodities as well and the records are arranged not by shipper but by commodity and I’ve only looked at three of ten boxes.  Many of the cars used for the start of the Pacific Northwest service had been diverted from Aviation Gasoline service to Richmond Beach, Washington in early 1945 and needed to be returned to their lessor, Derby Oil, for that purpose as other cars filled in. 


More when I have looked at the rest of the data.

John Barry

Wartime flat car loads update

After verifying this image is in the public domain as a partof the national archives, here is a copy of PT201 on SP flat 79571.  Can anyone tell me if somone makes a model of this car? October 1945 ORER shows it as a 52 foot car.   From Lee A. Gautreaux's Railgoat SP flat car page, I learned this is a F-50-14 class car with 16 stake pockets, straight side sills and Columbia steel trucks built by the SP in 1937.  His site with lots of SP info is at http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/index.htm. 

John Barry

Wartime flat car loads

I'll not post the photo due to copyright, but the original is available through the National Archives or you can get a copy of Squadron Signal's PT Boats in Action.  On page 48 of that publication is a picture of a partially completed 78' Higgens boat, PT 201 on SP 79571, a 52' flat car. This shot may have been an intra-plant transfer at Higgins Louisianna yard prior to launching, or it may have been prior to shipment to a port for overseas carriage on board a larger ship.  Absent confirmation of the former, I will take modeler's license and assume the latter for the North Bay Lines.  I have determined from the Official Railway Equipment Register that the car is a 52' flat.  Now to find the class and an HO model of the car.  The boat in this case is relatively easy.  Revell made a 1:96 scale kit of PT 212,the same class.  Not very detailed, but OK to match the photo and as a main line car load.  And I just happen to still have the assembled kit I built as a pre-teen  in the 60's.   Talk about serendipity!  I will update this in a future post.

John Barry

1944 Steam Locomotive Summary

The Santa Fe's west coast lines used a different mix of steam locomotive classes than the rest of the system.  The nearly flat expanse of the Valley Divistion made use of smaller, lighter power practical there so a preponderance of Pacifics was found there.  The Arizona Divison whose Mojave District included Tehachapi, had a lot of 3800 class 2-10-2s for moving freight between Bakersfiel and Barstow. 

A summary of locomotives assigned to each of the four California Divisions follows:

This list was extracted from he 1944 locomotive assignment list proidedby Stan Kistler.  A few of thelocmotivs changed Division assignments during the year and are counted in both divisions so a summation of the grand totals would have a few double counts.

Welcome to the North Bay Lines

Greetings and welcome to my blog.  I have been collecting information on the Santa Fe Railway for many years and shared a little of what I learned on the UNLV and Yahoo Santa Fe discussion lists.  Although those lists are great sources of information, they are not specific to my modeling era of 1945 or locale of the San Francisco Bay area.  I changed the focus of where and when I want to model about 10 years ago from Houston/Galveston to Richmond.  Both areas were relatively flat and had maritime interfaces.  I was drawn west by the greater diversity of steam power, passenger and freight trains, industries, military posts, and rail-marine operations. 

This blog will document the progress on the layout that I'm building and the information about the prototype on which it is based.  The area modeled will be about 50 miles, from MP 1130, just east of Middle River on the Valley Division Third District, to the Pullman spur, just RR west of Richmond.  It will include Ferry Point and the car float operations.The RR lends itself to both mainline running under Time Table & Train Orders, of which I am very fond, and industrial switching which I also enjoy.  Passenger operations include the Califonia Limited, Grand Canyon and Golden Gate yielding a mix of heavyweight and streamlined trains.The west end of the Santa Fe had a fascinating mix of operations and scenery.  Join me and read along as I document the journey to duplicate in HO scale.

John Barry,
 Cotati, CA