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Good Friends, Another find from Wikimedia was the attached 1909 shot of a Key System train going through the "subway" under the Southern Pacific tracks in Oakland. The structure is still unfinished. SN trains took this same route to reach the Key Mole, and later the Oakland Bay Bridge. It was also used by the WP-allied Oakland Terminal Railway. The OTRY leased SN's wooden flat motors 404 and 405 beginning in 1943 to handle traffic to the Oakland Army Base. Their pantograph towers were too tall for the motors to fit under the subway, so the towers were removed. Larger Key System pantographs were mounted on the motors' roofs which could compress low enough to get through the underpass, but were tall enough to reach the wires in other places. Motor 405 returned to the SN in 1945, and 404 came home in 1947, and from photos kept their Key patrographs until scrapped. They were replaced by SN 600-volt Baldwin motors 440 and 442, which also received Key pantographs. The Baldwins served the OTRY until 1955 when they were retired in favor of diesels. Yours Aye, Garth Groff ?

Friends, Yesterday I ran across this photo during a scour of Wikimedia. It shows the interior of the Key System mole in 1908 and is from the ELECTRIC RAILWAY JOURNAL. This shows how the interior of the terminal looked in the early days of OA&E operation, though this view predated their use of the route by several years. On January 30, 1911, the Key System and the OA&E agreed to allow the latter's trains to run from the junction at 40th & Shafter to the pier. The first test train ran on 11 December 1912, using OA&E Holman motor 1004 with a Key System crew. Other tests followed. Scheduled operation began on 7 April 1913. Key System required the OA&E equipment to be fully up to their standards. One such requirement was the use of Brown Roller Pantographs, which the OA&E rented from the Key System. Motors 1001-1006 were initially fitted with these pantographs. Later box motors 101 and 102 (sometimes used on picnic trains), and locomotives 103 and 104, received Brown pantographs. The rest of the OA&E equipment had Westinghouse 121-A pantographs, which were later modified to work on the Key overhead. I do not know when the Brown pantographs were returned to the Key System. Enjoy the photo. Yours Aye, Garth Groff ?

Friends, Recently I bought two photos on eBay, which I am sharing with y'all today. The first shows Niles motor 100 on the deadline at Chico. She was wrecked at Harter in 1935 (details unknown), and was not repaired. The occasion was probably on an excursion. I have a near identical negative from Will Whittaker dated 11-26-37, and another undated by Ken Jenkins. Each of the three are from very slightly different angles. The motor was burned for scrap in 1941. The second shows Holman motor 1004 also at Chico. She was wrecked in an argument with a rice truck at Rose Orchard on the Woodland Branch in October 1938. She was also burned for scrap in the 1941 gotterdammerung. I purchased the two photos not knowing they were copies made from the originals in 1957, or so it says on the back. They both are a bit off in tone, and they took all afternoon with the stamping tool to get rid of the dust spots and other flaws. The original photographer is unknown. I am glad to have 1004, but the 100 shot was not as good as what I already had. Ah, the perils of buying on eBay. Yours Aye, Garth Groff ?

Friends, I have made a few adjustments to the Yuba City map. Most importantly, I had mistakenly switched the position of the Shell and General Petroleum yards. Oops. I had conflicting information on their position, now corrected based on earlier Sanborn maps. I have taken a gamble on adding Earl Fruit Company, but the WP TIP Book shows them also assigned to the tracks serving Danna & Danna, but the note is a bit confusing. It is possible that Earl actually had a building between Danna & Danna and Bridge Street that was later torn down, or might just loaded from trucks there. I also added a "possible" note regarding the spur into Associated Transportation. I only have information on this spur from a fan-drawn map, but it is the most likely route to that industry. In looking through my correspondence, I found a reference to the SN diesel fuel tank being loaded using "black WP tank cars". Now the WP had various black tank cars. Possibly in the early diesel years this might have been done using their high-walkway AC&F 10K tanks, some of which were assigned to fuel service (and one I photographed at Stockton was painted yellow). Concurrently the WP used their 1201-series 12K tank cars for fuel, and these certainly would have been used to service Yuba City in later years after the AC&F cars were retired. I have never figured out where the WP loaded its fuel cars, but as most were carried as revenue cars on ORERs, they may have initially been loaded off-line, possibly at a bulk plant in the Bay Area served by the ATSF or SP. Please delete the earlier may, in favor of the attached update. Yours Aye, Garth Groff ?

Friends, Attached is a photo I took in 2002 shortly after operations at Yuba City ended. The building in question is on a spur identified on the mid-1970s WP TIP Book as "Sterling Ind.". It appears that by 2002 it was being used for fruit processing, as there are huge lugs in the background of my photo. This seems to be the same building identified in WP Circular 157E as "Sterling Brands". The product handled here is listed as "beer". This building shows in the B&W photo of SN 143 (taken circa 1964) from my collection. As I pointed out to Joel, this quonset- style roof was fairly common in early post-war industrial and commercial buildings, so I suspect this building went up in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Naturally it doesn't show on the Sanborn maps. Railroad Hobbies in Roseville has this style of roof. It was the Purity Market grocery store in the early 1950s (my parents used to shop here sometimes when I was about four years old). There also are or were two or three huge warehouses of this type along the SP tracks across from Swanston (North Sacramento). So can any of you shed any light on the use of the Sterling building? If it was a beer distributor, what brands did they stock (Lucky, Burgermeister, Olympia?). By the way, according to the Circular, the spur here had just two spots. Yours Aye, Garth Groff ?

Friends, Attached is the combined Yuba City Sanborn map, based on the scans George provided. No SN track yet. That is going to be difficult to add, but not impossible. Then I will key what industries I can locate to the WP Circular 167-E. Unfortunately, the area immediately to the west of the SN yard is missing from the scans. This leaves out a gasoline dealer that was just beyond Dana & Dana and the prune works a bit farther west. I will see what I can do about the fuel plant. More industries were located farther west, like the Sears warehouse and the Polaro and Harter areas. Those are too far off the map to be practical in this format, even if they were shown. This is one monster of a file, so I've dropped the pixel depth down to 200 dpi so it will go through our pokey DSL connection. But I've been working on this for several hours, and am burned out for the day. Your comments are always welcome. Yours Aye, Garth Groff ?

Friends, Attached are two pages from my copy of the famous Western Pacific Circular 157-E, a list of all the customers served by the WP, SN, TS, and their local interchange connections (SP, ATSF, etc.). The Circular was an internal document frequently updated. Although not dated, my copy is missing all references to the SN in Oakland, which was abandoned in February 1957. AFAIK, the original of my Circular, which I purchased from the CSRM Library, is the edition of the Circular to still exist. (I have seen copies of this document for sale by vendors, but they appear to have been made from the CSRM document, right down to the penciled "SN Yardmasters" notation on the cover.) I have been looking for a digital Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Yuba City to match up these industries. The most recent I have found online is 1909, which doesn't show the SN yard area at all. Maps for 1927 exist, but the Library of Congress hasn't digitized them. I don't know if there are any later maps for YC. The big problem with the SN and Sanborn maps is that after 1910 they did not show "trolley" trackage, even for major freight companies like the SN. Right-of-way is shown as a blank space, though any adjacent industrial buildings will be shown. Can anybody here contribute to this discussion with a map? General questions? Yours Aye, Garth Groff ?

Good friends, I ran across this photo "you know where" and declined to bid on it (I did buy some others which I will share shortly). The photo was pretty washed out, but I uploaded the image and managed to put some tone back into it to share with all of you. It was taken sometime before 1947 in Sacramento, probably in the tiny D-street yard. MW 301 was formerly OA&E/SF-S/SN Hall Scott passenger motor 1019. It became MW 301 after the end of passenger service. In 1947 it was demotorized, and became MW 81. In the 1960s it was retired and donated to the BAERA. It remains in unrestored condition at the Western Railway Museum. SN tower car MW 54 was one of three similar tower/storage cars (36, 38 and 54) rebuilt by the SN 1930. Originally it was OA&E/SF-S 3018, a 36' boxcar built by PC&F in 1913. It lasted as a tower car until 1952 or 1954 (the records are in conflict). Yours Aye, Garth Groff ?

It’s almost done! Michael Starkey

Hello, Does anyone remember what engine and caboose were used on the last day of trolley service in Marysville in the early seventies? Do we have pictures? I was in the caboose supposedly. Best regards Justin On Saturday, October 7, 2023, 1:55 PM, Garth Groff and Sally Sanford <mallardlodge1000@...> wrote: Friends, While browsing on Wikimedia Commons I stumbled across this rather small photo of an NE interurban car in Oroville circa 1906. I can't read the number, or even determine if it is a Niles or a Cincinatti car. Still interesting though. Yours Aye, Garth Groff ?

Friends, While browsing on Wikimedia Commons I stumbled across this rather small photo of an NE interurban car in Oroville circa 1906. I can't read the number, or even determine if it is a Niles or a Cincinatti car. Still interesting though. Yours Aye, Garth Groff ?

Hello: Here is a rare view of the first building in beautiful downtown Arboga. Please note the NE car off to the left of the hotel.

Get out the credit card!

NE's original depot in downtown Oroville. NE 129 is at left. One of the two former Pennsylvania RR baggage cars is at right. ~Bill Shippen

Hi there: Here is a NE Company view looking West from the Oroville side of the Feather River looking toward Thermalito. The structures in the distance are believed to be the bridgetenders shelter along with the obligatory outhouse. This bridge was lost due to flooding and replaced with a steel structure. One of the bridge concrete supports is still standing on the Oroville side of the river. ~Bill Shippen

Hello: More goodies.