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Re: What Caused the Demise of Bayshore Yard
Author: Dr Zarkoff
Date: 05-21-2015 - 11:24
>So there was more than just the SP line way into SF, if you can believe it!
The SP and NWP had carfloats too. I was a switchman in SF in the late 1960s/early 1970s and can recall having to watch out for WP and AT&SF switch engines in certain switching district (State Belt too). My point is that SF was a dead-end destination with water on three sides (doesn't matter for which RR), and when all the warehousing moved to Nevada to escape the annual inventory tax, that was all she wrote. Oakland had (and still does) a lot of run-through traffic, so does Richmnond (AT&SF/BuNSnifF) for that matter. The expanse of land necessary for a container terminal, space on the waterfront for the piers and cranes, and the cost of the physical plant to run trains into SF when Oakland was barely three miles across the Bay all worked against SF's continued life as a "rail center".
The SP and NWP had carfloats too. I was a switchman in SF in the late 1960s/early 1970s and can recall having to watch out for WP and AT&SF switch engines in certain switching district (State Belt too). My point is that SF was a dead-end destination with water on three sides (doesn't matter for which RR), and when all the warehousing moved to Nevada to escape the annual inventory tax, that was all she wrote. Oakland had (and still does) a lot of run-through traffic, so does Richmnond (AT&SF/BuNSnifF) for that matter. The expanse of land necessary for a container terminal, space on the waterfront for the piers and cranes, and the cost of the physical plant to run trains into SF when Oakland was barely three miles across the Bay all worked against SF's continued life as a "rail center".
