FUD Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Googlefanning ... as of the most recent street
> view (2019), rails were still in the pavement
> crossing Blanding St., and a few bits were present
> between there and the bridge and of course on the
> bridge. Everything else past the curve to Glascock
> St. is gone.
>
> The satellite view appears to be from when the
> track removal was in progress. The street view
> appears to be from a little bit later, after much
> of the equipment had left.
>
> One wonders if the RR bridge will be demolished?
> Does UP still own it?
>
> There's an interesting little MS Train Simulator
> (Open Rails is now preferred) territory for the
> ABL. Not clear exactly which era it's modeling,
> though it uses diesels and is far enough back to
> have most of the ABL tracks that are on this map
> (artistic license?). The impression given by the
> territory is that interchange happened at a small
> yard (just a couple of tracks) off the SP main
> line, but from other discussion here it appears
> that interchange happened on the island. So if one
> were generating activities for that route, ABL
> work would all start at the end of Clement St.
> near the team track? Or did SP go down Clement and
> interchange at the ABL yard? Trying to figure what
> a SP (rather than ABL) activity would look like.
> And what did SP switch (if anything) along
> Clement?

Alameda County owns the railroad bridge, and the same county employee that operates the Miller-Sweeney (Fruitvale Avenue) roadway bridge operated the railroad bridge, using a different control panel.

ABL-SP interchange was made at ABL's yard west of Sherman Street, as ABL had no official operating authority to cross the estuary bridge. However, in occasional times of heavy traffic, SP and ABL would meet between the Alameda side of the bridge and the Blanding Avenue crossing to interchange entire trains. There was a short run-around track there that the delivering railroad could use to get its engine out of the way.

As late as the early Seventies there were still 5 or so customers on Clement that were capable of rail service, and could be switched by either railroad.