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Re: Alameda Belt Line-Any Freight Remaining?
Author: OPRRMS
Date: 07-13-2009 - 22:14
WAF Wrote:
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> Rich, what (who) was the John Stevens Zipper. Came
> out of East Oakland to Homestead/Desert
John was one of the "Old Heads" when I landed in Oakland in 1972. Naturally, he worked high seniority jobs - the "good" jobs. I don't recall him working the "Super Chief" as it worked Third Trick and he had way too much seniority for that, although it tended to be a pretty high seniority job for switchmen, since they mostly just had to ride around.
My somewhat fuzzy recollection is that the job you're referring to was one of the transfer jobs between East Oakland and West Oakland. (Maybe Dr. Zarloff can chime in and help me with this.) Until about 1975 there was enough traffic between those two points to run one transfer job on all three shifts. You'd come on duty at East Oakland and after all the Industry jobs had made up their drags and departed, you'd go to work switching out all the cars that had been brought in from the industries on the previous shift, including weighing any cars. Afterwards, you'd build your drag and take it to either the Homestead (entering the yard via Magnolia) or the Desert (entering the yard via West Oakland Interlock), or sometimes both yards. You'd drop your drag, run the engine back to the other end of the yard, and pick up a drag to take back to East Oakland. Once there, you'd switch it out so that the cars would be in the designated tracks for each Industrial Zone. There were similar drag jobs between Richmond Transfer and West Oakland, and Emeryville Yard and West Oakland.
Back until the mid-Seventies, there was a job on each shift that came out of East Oakland and worked the SP's customers in Alameda. These jobs could also deliver to and pick up from the Belt if necessary.
Times sure have changed. In 1970 there were approximately 125 daily yard jobs working in the Oakland Terminal, with six On Duty locations (East Oakland, Homestead, Glass House [West Oakland], Desert, Emeryville and Richmond Transfer). Nowadays, there are about 10 daily jobs and only one On Duty location (West Oakland). And as part of UP's Roseville Hub concept, all freight pools with Oakland as their Home Terminals were abolished; Oakland became an Away From Home Terminal.
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> Rich, what (who) was the John Stevens Zipper. Came
> out of East Oakland to Homestead/Desert
John was one of the "Old Heads" when I landed in Oakland in 1972. Naturally, he worked high seniority jobs - the "good" jobs. I don't recall him working the "Super Chief" as it worked Third Trick and he had way too much seniority for that, although it tended to be a pretty high seniority job for switchmen, since they mostly just had to ride around.
My somewhat fuzzy recollection is that the job you're referring to was one of the transfer jobs between East Oakland and West Oakland. (Maybe Dr. Zarloff can chime in and help me with this.) Until about 1975 there was enough traffic between those two points to run one transfer job on all three shifts. You'd come on duty at East Oakland and after all the Industry jobs had made up their drags and departed, you'd go to work switching out all the cars that had been brought in from the industries on the previous shift, including weighing any cars. Afterwards, you'd build your drag and take it to either the Homestead (entering the yard via Magnolia) or the Desert (entering the yard via West Oakland Interlock), or sometimes both yards. You'd drop your drag, run the engine back to the other end of the yard, and pick up a drag to take back to East Oakland. Once there, you'd switch it out so that the cars would be in the designated tracks for each Industrial Zone. There were similar drag jobs between Richmond Transfer and West Oakland, and Emeryville Yard and West Oakland.
Back until the mid-Seventies, there was a job on each shift that came out of East Oakland and worked the SP's customers in Alameda. These jobs could also deliver to and pick up from the Belt if necessary.
Times sure have changed. In 1970 there were approximately 125 daily yard jobs working in the Oakland Terminal, with six On Duty locations (East Oakland, Homestead, Glass House [West Oakland], Desert, Emeryville and Richmond Transfer). Nowadays, there are about 10 daily jobs and only one On Duty location (West Oakland). And as part of UP's Roseville Hub concept, all freight pools with Oakland as their Home Terminals were abolished; Oakland became an Away From Home Terminal.
