Dr Zarkoff Wrote:
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> SP's Melrose was on the former electric line
> between the WP and E. 14th St. Until the mid
> 1980s, there was a lumber yard there which the
> drill track job(s) served. WP's Melrose was the
> crossing of the electric lines. After the WP line
> was cut back to "WP Melrose", the crews started
> calling the switch on the Niles line "Melrose",
> and I think this has sort of stuck.

The current Melrose became identified as such after the 1996 merger. The original intent after UP removed the Oakland Sub between CP F010 (traditional Melrose, the location of Melrose Tower before the WP was CTC'ed, as opposed to Melrose station, which was located just west of East 14th Street on the IER/SP) and the new connection behind the SP's East Oakland yard office was for trains to and from the Oakland Sub to enter the East Oakland yard at CP Strong and use the yard track (it's currently numbered 212) closest to the Niles Sub main line, then continue south on what was known in SP days as the Eastbound Electric (currently numbered as Track 214) to reach the National Lead (pronounced 'led") Lead just south of the crossing at High Street. From there trains would use the SP Drill Track to a new connection with the Oakland Sub (old WP main line) that was created when UP revised the track at traditional Melrose and redesignated it as CP F010. Included in the redesign was the removal of the Oakland Sub as indicated above, the diamonds and associated trackage at traditional Melrose, plus direct access to the Melrose Drill Track (afterwards, access to that end of the Drill Track was achieved via a crossover located at 54th Avenue). This was done in 1997.

However, that original plan outlined above was changed when UP decided to remove the former Eastbound Electric between just north of the 29th Avenue crossing and just north of the High Street crossing, a distance of slightly less than one mile. Accordingly, trains to and from the Oakland Sub then used the Niles Sub main track between just north of High Street and CP Strong (located just north of 5th Avenue). Access at High Street was (and still is) by a hand-operated switch. When CTC was installed on the Niles Sub between CP Strong and CP Elmhurst, the junction switch at High Street became designated in the timetable as Melrose, without a "CP" designation. The original intent was to install a dual-control switch at that point, which would've been known as "CP NI010," but it was never done. (That's why "NI010" is missing from the timetable station column.) The remaining portions of the Eastbound Electric, National Lead Lead and Drill Track between the switch at new Melrose and the beginning of CTC at F010 was redesignated as the main track of the Oakland Sub, was non-signaled, with authority to operate on confired by Yard Limits. This same scenario applies today, with the exception that Yard Limits has been replaced by Other Than Main Track (which allowed UP to install a derail on the track just south of High Street).