Bagels and a BNSF Baretable

I went out to get bagels for breakfast this fine Sunday morning. I was happy to go, hadn’t seen a single thing move on rails since Friday. So Mitchel and I piled in to the car and headed for I-580 which parallels the UP Martinez Sub for a couple of miles between Stege and Albany. We almost caught a southbound Amtrak Capital but he was too far ahead of us doing 70mph and leaving us in its dust. We picked up the bagels and made our way back to the freeway.

At Albany the road passes over the tracks and we passed over a long string of northbound well cars on Track 1 of UP’s Martinez Sub. The train was doing about 30mph and appeared to be slowing. By the time we reached Central Ave, we’d caught up to the head end. A couple of BNSF Dash-9’s had passed under the south signal bridge at Stege Junction and were easing onto the crossover from Track 1 to the Waterside Drill for the run over to the BNSF Richmond Terminal and likely on to somewhere north.

Mitchel and I headed over to the wye at Stege and waited for them to show up. Mitchel was content to wait having just demolished an asiago cheese bagel in record time (I’ve learned previously to never try to wait for a train with a hungry five-year-old!). In about ten minutes, the GE units thrummed into view on the far side of the wye.

Stege Wye

Stege Wye is a nice piece of trackwork. One leg is basically a siding that runs parallel to the Waterside Drill track. On each end of this leg, the track is inclined at several percent to raise the track high enough to provide adequate clearance for the other two legs which diverge away from the Martinez Sub and immediately cross the I-580 freeway near Regatta Blvd.

The dark line you can see along the top side of the straight leg is shadow. The wye track is about fourteen feet higher than the UP tracks it parallels. So the train we are waiting for is coming up the track at the lower right of this picture and will swing onto the lower leg of the wye above the freeway. We are at the grade crossings located where both curved legs of the crossing converge after crossing the freeway.

Both curved legs sit in formed concrete bridges, seen as white outlines in the satellite view above. The cross-section of the bridges resembles a trough, combining support for the tracks, side walls and safety fences mounted above the side walls. The area is a favorite for taggers and you can see they have been pretty active lately. This is not an area to go wandering along the tracks. Aside from the whole trespassing thing, on the other side of these bridges, there are very few exit routes should you need one.

Here’s a view of the west end of the north leg. Brightly colored ivy grows freely here on many highway concrete structures as can be seen on the end of the right bridge wall and on the outside of the bridge on the left. Note the grade crossing here has no fancy concrete inserts. The ride for cars is pretty rough over these tracks.

Here’s the view of the west end of the south leg of the wye. I-580 is just over the fences on the other side of the road.

The tracks from each of the bridges come together and continue as double track. They make a right-hander over the grade crossing and head up the slight hill past Safeway yard to the main RPRC yard at S. 23rd Ave.

It’s all jointed rail here boys! None of that sissy continuous welded rail!! Note also the small grain of the ballast and most of the ties are covered with ballast.

A simple detail is this relay shed, also a target for taggers apparently. The track beyond the shed used to go down to an old industrial area. The tracks were pretty much all torn up a few years ago when the area was rehabilitated and a lot of contaminated soil was removed. The track occasionally hosts track maintenance equipment.

This shed is mounted off the ground with small steel footings on each corner.

The BNSF Baretable

Okay, so enough of the pics I shot while waiting for the train, here is the BNSF baretable easing over the south leg of the Stege Wye.

It always is a surprise to me to see these big units on the modest local rails near my house - mainline action without having to live right next to a main line.

Here’s the second unit.

The track here is good for 10 mph and trains make a nice ringing sound on the right hander. The grade crossings here are not yet silenced so I get a little audible notice of trains passing over the local line.

Other grade crossings in the local area have been silenced. Listen to as many train horns as you can while you still can!

Strings of empty well cars coming out of Oakland tend to be pretty long. I guessed about one hundred and thirty wells, Mitchel thought about it for a moment and estimated fifty thousand hundred. He could easily be right! Well cars came by for about 15 minutes. We waited till the crossings were clear and headed home with our bagels. A brief fix to be sure, and even if it is a lowly string of well cars, as always, there’s nothing like watchin’ them roll down the track.

- Coxy and Mitchel