Re: WP's North Channel Spur
Author: Jon Kreiter
Date: 08-02-2013 - 15:24
Are you still out there? Still interested in W.P. north spur line? If you didn't find answers to your questions, I might be able to fill in some of the gaps. I used to get cab rides on the line in mid 1960's. At that time SW 9's 601 and 602, and VO 1000's 581, 582, and 585 were engines that I rode. There was a team track at U.O.P. At the time North Stockton was being developed and house developers were picking up wall board usually from bulk head flats or an occasional box car. There were deliveries to a John Deer outlet at Country Club Ave. At the port proper there was a metal scrap dealer, a US Steel fabricating plant (They received sheet metal in covered gondolas, but most of their finished product went out by truck. They would make anything anybody wanted, but the bulk of their business was air ducts.) There was a Boat building company which made pleasure craft. And there was a separate and unrelated military boat repair center. There was several team tracks, one track had an over head crane; two other tracks had end loading ramps, which was used to unload new automobiles for the downtown dealerships. Frito Lay Potato chips took delivery of an occasional box car there. In the past Texico Oil had a small spur and fuel depot there, but it was abandoned by the time I was riding the line.