Re: SP L.A. A through K Yards
Author: BOB2
Date: 03-03-2009 - 09:03
Dolores,
A very interesting question, and here's what I know.......
A-Yard- Top end under the Glendale Freeway-Above Fletcher Drive-Part of the Taylor Yard Complex.
A-Yard Lower end-- The Hump (short side tracks)-Mainline Tower (long side tracks)--Opposite Taylor Roundhouse and the Old Car Shops.
B-Yard-The Bowl of the Hump Yard--opposite the old PFE yard next to/south of Taylor RGH.
C-Yard-Long Side from Mainline Tower to Dayton Tower
C-Yard Short Side from On-duty point-end of B yard to Dayton Tower.
D-Yard the old short yard inside from Dayton north--opposite Lowery's-Old Taylor Mill.
All of this was the Taylor Yard- (This low end of C yard and D yard are now the Metrolink Shops complex).
E-F-G the tracks from the Midway (Gold Line shops today)-through the Bullring-Links-River Station Complex-including the freight house complex at Naud Junction (across from Chinatown GL Station and the Old Mill).
H--I am unsure on these really old details, but I believe this applied to the Alameda Street-Old Coach Yard on Alameda Street.
Remember at that time this area included the Eighth Street terminal area and the Old Grand Central Station Complex area on South Alameda Street, replaced by Union Station and the "New coach yard" in 1939.
J Yard is still at 25th Street-opposite old PE Butte Street (Now the Alameda Corridor Trench)
K yard was down Alameda at Firestone Junction-wye to Santa Ana, opposite the Firestone Plant. Firestone Park was the end of the Yard limits for the LA Terminal, beyond that was the Tweedy Yard serving GM and Jorgensen Steel (outside of yard limits). The AC has replaced most this.
Then, of course there was the "Shops" complex "new" coach yard-now the Intermodal terminal along Mission Road.
Old Aurant Soto Street-Bridge east, and the "belly" of the Aurand switching district. New Aurant-Valley Blvd. east, where the deadline, piggybacks, and bulk unloading facility is behind the Pasadena Model Railroad Club and the LA Museum of Railroading. Alhambra depot and the street tracks in Alhambra were the end of eastward yard limits for the LA Terminal.
A-through K were aligned on the Taylor Yard-Bullring-Alameda Street Yard scheme from about the 1920's.
This also contains some secret hints/answers to yesterday's pop quiz....
Only having a 60's seniority date, I learned a great deal of this from "old heads" 20's-40's seniority dates, and some of them learned it from there fathers and grandfathers 70-80-90's seniority dates, 1870's that is.........
This would be a great oral history project for LAMOR or one of our local Universities, before these guys go.... Kind of like the oral histories from the WWII guys who saved this country?