Re: Lodi CA Questions
Author: hepkema
Date: 01-28-2012 - 10:48
I lived in Lodi between '82 and '85, so I can give a snapshot of what happened during those years. I got to know the station agent the first year there, but his job was abolished in '84 when the one remaining local based out of Lodi was abolished to originate out of Stockton. Sounds like little has changed out on the Woodbridge branch. They used to serve the Mills (Lodi residents called it the Cheerios Plant) in the early daylight hours on Tu, Th, and Sat. Tuesdays and Thursdays were also the run up to Galt and out the Ione Branch. By the 80s, the packing sheds downtown were not rail customers anymore. The only ones to switch were the big one(s) on the south end of town. The Kentucky House Branch had miles storage cars out beyond Valley springs that needed fetching and adding to at times, but that was the only activity on the line since the cement plant at San Andreas closed in about '81. I got to chase the last pull of storage cars from the line in the fall of '84. After that, it was pretty much taken out of service beyond Lockeford--which had the last shopper on the line, that being a 1-car-at-a-time feed customer with an auger set up on the house track.
At that time, the CCT still came down street-running tracksge on Lodi Avenue every weekday at about 1300 to reach the Tri Valley plant. At that time, they were still running through to Polk in S. Sac most days. The Wilton trestle was damaged in the floods of '85 and I don't think that they went through any more after that (but that's when we moved away, so I son't know for sure.