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Southern Pacific San Jose Roundhouse Photo Gallery, Part 3
 4-6-23
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Up, Up and AWAY with PSA!
NEW 10-17-2022(moved to this page 11-13-22): In September, 1970, it appears that Norman Sarratt was a passenger on an airplane (one of Pacific Southwest Airways' then-ubiquitous Boeing 727's?) descending on the San Jose airport glidepath when he managed this dandy shot of San Jose Roundhouse and RIP Tracks. An H12-44 and a Commute Geep sit next to the house, while power near the sanding facility include Train Masters and Commute FP7 #6462. Today, the Caltrain main tracks run squarely across the former turntable site. |
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| Time is growing short
...but you would never know it from looking at the scene. This Sunday, September 9, 1956 view from the head brakeman's seat of "Malley" #4168 looks back towards the San Jose Roundhouse and the lineup of locos awaiting the Monday morning Commute "Fleet" - not a diesel in sight! At the end of November, Cab Forwards made their last revenue runs. SP retired the 4168 on the day after Christmas. Then, on January 25, 1957, five days after steam ceased on the Commutes, California Metals of Pittsburg put her to the torch. Photographer unknown, Wx4 Collection |
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Changing of the Guard
Lenzen Avenue Roundhouse, San Jose, mid-1974: Electro-Motive SW1500 #2689 sitting between the locomotives that it would replace on the Peninsula, Alco RS-32 #4008 and Fairbanks-Morse H12-44 # 2350 (SP's first F-M). The F-M's could be found in Coast Division yards from San Luis Obispo to Mission Bay. The Alcos were decade-long mainstays on Peninsula on local freights such as the Sunnyvale and Millbrae. They were favorites among crews for their quick loading in switching service, something that the older EMD's lacked. The 2689 and mates had a large switch in the cab that, when flipped into switching mode, would cause the unit to "move right now". It is also a sentimental favorite of mine, as I cut my baby teeth as a switchman on it, switching the San Jose depot on midnight shift with my cranky, but good hearted mentor, Engineer Butch Nesbit. The loco was the standard-assigned depot goat from about this time until the early 1980's. Photographer unknown, Wx4 Collection |
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Lenzen Avenue on a wet winter's evening - Wx4 photo
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On May 11, 1985, probably just a week or two before the aboe photo was recorded, we find a nice selection of SP and CDTX locosin the turntable area, including SP #3187, the only unit to receive Caltrain's not particularly attractive experimental paint scheme. That is the roundhouse foreman's office to the right rear of #3191. - Unknown photographer, Wx4 Collection | |||
| Here we see a well-battered #6338 in the fall of 1968, near the end of her career. She and mate #8288, passenger F7's #6388 and #356, along with an unknown SD45 are sitting on one of the ready tracks at the rarely photographed east side of the roundhouse facility. The clear rail to their right is the west leg of the San Jose wye. |
 Wx4 photo |
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 Wx4 Collection |
San Jose's wye was a product of the 1935 West Side relocation, being put into service sometime after 1932. Prior to that, there simply was no way to turn anyhing larger than a 4-6-2 or 2-8-2 anywhere in the Santa Clara Valley, meaning that even ias late as the mid-1930's, 2-10-2's such as #3654 could only run throgh. Until then, San Jose was Hog country. But specuatively, turning large locomotives may not have been as pressing a need for SP to maintain a direct passeneger train route between San Jose and the Milpitas / Hayward lines. Passenger locals would run via the wye and Milpitas for another half-decade after Cahill's opening. In the photo, #3654 is heading into Roundhouse #1 after making a turn on the wye. Locomotives turning on the wye generally traverses the south leg running forward due to road crossings. The forward-facing fireman tips us off that the loco originally came from the west, and will return in that direction. The wooden structure next to the loco is a sand house constructed from one stall of the old South Pacific Coast narrow gauge roundhouse that formerly stood at the corner of Stockton Avenue and The Alameda. It sits in a tight, wedge-shaped spot, which meant that a repurposed roundhouse stall was an ideal solution. |
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| Here we see RS-32 #4004 posing circa 1970 in front of the College Park (San Jose) herder's shanty at the west entrance to the roundhouse, with College Park Yard in the background. The night herder's relief job was my first regular assignment as a switchman. The job mostly handled switches for roundhouse hostling moves, but after I donated a bottle of Old Crow to the hostlers, they threw their own switches for as long as I lasted on the job. - EO |
 Wx4 Collection |
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 Stanley Color Slides, Wx4 Collection |
At nearly the identical spot as the photo above, SP Malley #4101 heads towards San Jose roundhouse past the College Park herder shanty (right edge) ca.1954. (Note College Park Tower in background. This image was rescued from a 60 year old slide from Stanley Color Slides. This and his others in Wx4's collection have yellowed almost irretrievably, so praise Photoshop! | |||
| This simply is a fine roster shot by John Harder of #4354 at the west end of San Jose's roundhouse facility. Old steam men were quick to point out to Wx4 Staff that the MT's were their favored Commute power. The former "Yellowjacket" GS-4's assigned during the last couple of years of steam were just too slippery for jackrabbit starts on moist rail. |
 Jon Harder, Wx4 Collection |
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 photographer unknown, wx4 Collection |
Just about any sort of passenger power might show up on a Commute plug, sooner or later. PA-2 #6041 and E7B #5916 were lined up at San Jose Roundhouse on May 8, 1964 for train #151) which in a few years time would become a regular assignment for exSSW FP7 #6462). The precipitating circumstances are unknown, but Bayshore dis use the Commutes to break-in / troubleshoot power after shopping. | |||
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