I find it a pleasant interlude to continue to disagree with "FF" over the subject of the WARD ST facilities of the old OA&B lines..

Here are the facts as obtained from the chapters of Bob Ford's wonderful book,
"Red Trains in the Eastbay" .

The OA&B lines//IER lines of the SP had up to eighteen different 'storage yards' at one time or another. Ward Street was not one of them. It only had one of three 'freight houses' as did Melrose and Park Street-North in Alameda.
Ward Street had a single spur that left the SP line and crossed the Key to get into the freight house area. It was switched solely by SP 1200 class 0-6-0 switch engines since 1914.

FIVE tracks ran up Shattuck Avenue between Ward Street and Dwight Way. Two tracks for the SP and three tracks for the Key. Of the Key's three tracks, one was used for Key System trains and two were used for Key streetcars. The 5th track was removed in 1930.

The SP used full catenary trolley suspension. The Key used single-wire suspension.
The single track spur into Ward Street did not contain a 1200/600 volt overhead crossing.

Hope all this helps.
It's been many years and I'm not getting any younger either, but I tried to research this as best I could.

Henry