As I have said before, these photos were posted here years ago, but the links to them were lost when the old ISP I had stopped that business and the photos disappeared from Altamont Press. I have a new ISP and am working over those pages now and am reposting them here many years later.



Southern Pacific Alco S6 1211 in Oakland, CA, on an unknown date in May 1974. This is information from various sources, mostly "OPRRMS": The photo was taken from the West Grand Avenue overpass. The baggage car is the switchman's shanty at the east end of the Desert Yard. It replaced an earlier wooden structure. At the time of the photo, there was still an "East End" yard job at the Desert on each shift. The jobs actually went on and off duty at the west end of the Desert, but spent their entire shift working at the east end. The photo was taken from the West Grand Avenue overpass.

According to "OPRRMS", "The photo was taken from what was originally the west leg of the IER overpass. After the IER quit, the tracks on the west leg were removed and the roadbed was paved and used by vehicles until the current West Grand Avenue overpass was built. After that, vechicle access to the west leg was rerouted to the new overpass, but it could still be walked on, albeit unofficially. It's now completely gone, although you can still see where it was lopped off where it joined the east leg on the west side of the trestle. The east leg, or course, became the OT."

In late December 2013 on Facebook Tim O'Connor said, "The B&O box car is an M-61 built by ACF in 1951 and renumbered 299070 and given a subclass in 1953 (give or take). The GTW box car was built by General American in 1953 and is still wearing its original paint job. The B&O car was repainted at some time in the 1960's."

Tim O'Connor said, "That's an ignominious end for the baggage car - I think that's one of the PC&F baggage cars and would only be what, 12 years old at this date?"

Harry Wong said, "Tim - lots of those PC&F baggage cars wound up sitting on the ground as yard sheds/offices/storage IIRC. That's an excellent point on how young these cars were at the time."

Tim O'Connor said, "Interesting that Amtrak didn't get its hands on them -- They would have been some of the newest cars in the fleet!"

Harry Wong said, "Amtrak did receive a very small number of those PC&Fs IIRC. There is a photo of one in the Amtrak All-time roster book that was recently published."

Tim O'Connor said, "By the way, that blue GTW autoparts box car is headed either to a General Motors assembly plant or to a GM parts warehouse. That's because only GM used 8-door box cars."

Harry Wong said, "As for where that GTW car was going, there was a GM assembly plant in Fremont, CA, about 20 miles south of Oakland, CA. Today, that plant is still in use, but producing electric vehicles for a different manufacturer."


Reportedly (sources) S6 SP 1211 was built by ALCo in June 1955 as SP 1044, SP Class DS-9, construction number 81294, order number S-3242. It became SP 1211, SP Class AS409-1 in the 1965 renumbering. It was retired Jan. 1976 and went to Asbestos & Danville 55, before being scrapped.

Thanks again everybody. I have been enjoying your comments!

Information, stories, suggestions, comments and/or constructive corrections are appreciated.

~Steve Sloan

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Steve Sloan E-mail: steve@ssloan.net

These photos, and many others, are on my train photo website here.

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