Local Richmond Rail Traffic

I arrived back in California from Australia on Sunday and I’m just now getting back into the swing of things. It’s good to be back in a location where I can see trains on a regular basis.  On Monday, I caught two following moves on the local Santa Fe line.

The first was the BNSF Oakland local which I saw waiting on the Waterside Drill track at Stege headed for Oakland. It received a favorable signal indication from the UP dispatcher as I passed by on I-580, probably red-over-yellow-over-red judging by the way they put the hammer down. I doubled back to Albany and caught this clip as they rolled under Buchannan Ave and on to Oalkland. Here’s the location for reference.

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This clip is mainly to record the power and consist of this train.

I don’t have clarity on all of the specific destinations of the cars in this train once they get to Oakland but it helps from a planning perspective to know that there are customers for reefers, covered hoppers, bulkhead flats loaded with steel plates, and gons of scrap. BNSF has a few tracks on the east side of the UP tracks around 16th Street in Oakland. The Oakland Terminal Railroad may also interchange with the BNSF somewhere down there.

When I headed back toward home after catching the local, I was blocked at Marina Bay Parkway by a second BNSF train, this time an Oakland-bound stack train. Since I was blocked, I doubled back to the Regatta Blvd crossing near the Stege Wye and caught these clips. I include clips that cover the whole train for reference purposes, as it’s good to have a record of the types of well cars in use as well as a record of the container schemes and markings and the state of weathering. this stuff may not be obtainable in the future for one reason or another.

On Tueaday morning on my way out to work, the RPRC was blocking Marina Bay Parkway as the crew shuffled a few cars in the yard (sorry, no pics).  I headed over to the Regatta Blvd crossing to bypass the blockage and found an Oakland-bound stack train that had passed through thirty minutes earlier that morning blocking that crossing (sorry no pics). The tail of the stack train extended to 34th Street and had two BNSF Dash-9’s running backwards. Rather than wait in line for potentially a long time to get to the freeway, I doubled back to Marina Bay Parkway and eventually got out onto the freeway and saw the head end of the stack train just taking off at Stege crossovers on a red-over-yellow-over-red indication.

These moves may seem insignificant but they are all good fodder for future Richmond Belt Line operating sessions. Model the average, not the exception - Pelle Soeborg.

- Coxy