My wife's company has a medical clinic in Stockton and she visits two or three times a month. We live in Sacramento and I railfan while she works (nice work if you can get it). I'm not much of a shutterbug or I'd offer some photos, but I have found that the ACE station and its surrounding area feature all of the traffic on BNSF and UP. There is a diamond about half mile south of the station and I stick to that area. Traffic is pretty steady all day, I'd guess 20 separate freight trains and six Amtrak San Joaquins during the 0900 - 1600 period (don't know much about night as I retreat to Sacto after her work day ends). ACE station has a rest room and small, friendly staff.

If you have a car, the Santa Fe road (highway) between Escalon and the Empire end of Modesto and Empire offer some good venues yard and road pictures.

She and I talked about Stockton safety today, in fact, and neither of us think it's any worse than other low income areas in the valley, but would still be cautious at night. Since Stockton's in our video market area you'd expect to hear it if there is high crime (if it bleeds it leads, sort of thing), but our local stations don't make crime sound particularly rampant.