Hello, I am hoping one of the many knowledgable SP Bay Area persons here can help me with a question regarding the SP Yard in Oakland.

My grandfather (Juan Jose de la pena) worked for the SP as a cabinet/furniture marker in the Oakland Yard Shops from approx. 1923 to 1972, I don't remember the exact date he retired, and unfortunately I can't ask my Father since he passed away about a year ago. As a young boy, my Father would take me three or four times a year to see my Grandfather at work,and get a tour of the yards and shops; since all of my Grandfather's brothers also worked in the yard in various deparments.

I don't know the proper name of the shop he worked in, but he and my Father called it the Cabinet Shop. I know that his job as a journeyman cabinet maker was to make furniture for the corporate offices in San Fransisco, ticket counters and benches like the those at 16th St Station, and at one time any wood mouldings for the passenger cars. Once I watch him take a blank of tool steel, and by day's end grind it into a series of shaper cutter heads, and use it to make mouldings. In the final years when I would visit him all the shop was producing was wooden crossing arms, and special one off wood projects. I don't think his shop was considered part of the Right of Way Department that took care of building carpentry, since my father worked in that department at night while attending CAL before the War, and he always referred to that shop as the Carpenter Shop, and when he showed us the builings they weren't near the building my Grandfather worked in.

From my visits I do remember that the shop building he worked in was located near the brick tower that once stood in the yard, and you would enter off a side street near the USPS mail facility. Towards the end when I would visit him it was only him and one assistant, and I do remember going with him within weeks of his retirement to watch the building being torn down, since the SP was under no union obligation to carry his craft position after he retired. Attaced to his building was a large open sided shed structure that housed huge planers/joiners and multi-head doweling machines. At the times of my visits you could tell this part of the shops had not been staffed for many years, and one special visit the equipment was needed, and the only one left that knew how to operate the equipment was my Grandfather.

I have tried in the past at the State Railroad Museum to find pictures or drawings of the shop area my Grandfather worked in so I can add a similar stucture to my layout. However I can find no pictures or drawings of the shop, and though they have been very nice, the staff at the museum library have not been very helpful. When I have visited the library there they usually provide me drawings of the roundhouse or boiler shop area not what I am looking for.

Does anyone know what the proper name of the department and shop area was that my Grandfather work in? And is there a better source for old SP corporate photographs and yard maps than the Railroad Museum in Sacramento. My real hope is to find a picture of the shops with him in the photograph. Also if I can find a good source of SP corporate photographs from the 1930-1940 era I hope to find a picture containing my other Grandfather who worked for the SP in various licensed sailing postions on the ferries until near their end.

Thank you in advance to any of you who answer my post, and to all of you that over the years of this board have provided us all with great pieces of SP Bay Area History.

John Delapena