I have some great memories of the West Side line from my all-too short SP brakeman days. It's the only place where I was involved in a grade crossing accident at speed (couple of GP9's and about 30 cars vs a full sugar beet truck in Newman, CA) and the only time we stopped dead on the main line for a herd of cattle (south of Los Banos, F7 lead unit. The cows had broken through a fence and were milling about on the track. That engine was one of the few that still had a single-tone horn, and the cows paid it no attention. Oddly, what did get them to get nervous and move away was when the bell, under the pilot, was started up).

I worked the Firebaugh road switcher (S-6 Alco) during melon season...not by choice but by being assigned there for a couple of weeks due to low seniority. My memories there are of being knocked flat onto the ballast by a reefer door that had swung open (not properly locked) and that approached from behind while I was passing signals, and of a great little Mexican restaurant in Firebaugh that the farmhands ate at...some of the best Mexican food ever.

As I recall, there'd be about a hundred cars of melons leaving Firebaugh-Mendota every evening. If you were in the hole somewhere between Sacramento and Lathrop to meet a fruit block, after it went by northbound (timetable east) the still night air would take on an overwhelming (and delicious) smell of cantaloupes. Good times!