There was a thread on this board not too long ago(the scrapping of the boxcars at Concord NWS) that showed the Hawthorne pic in Howard's response to this thread. When the move for this particular gun barrel occurs, it wouldn't be the only time that a gun barrel of this size has been moved by rail on its way to preservation. A 16" 45 caliber barrel was moved to Souix Falls, SD for the USS South Dakota memorial(requiring a fairly complex routing, including the DME if I recall; don't have the date at hand right now). The piece being donated to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area is 16" 50 caliber. One of the nicknames for these guns was "Big Sticks". Henceforth, the first vessel that mounted this gun was nicknamed such(from Teddy Roosevelt's "Walk softly and carry a big stick"). That vessel would be the USS Iowa(BB61), but instead of one, she of course mounts nine of 'em. She's anchored in Suisun bay, east of the Benicia Bridge awaiting a home(possibly the former Mare Island Naval Base) While not entirely rail related, this thread does fascinate me(two interests on mine going back to childhood were trains and battleships).