The Southern Pacific Railroad

This photograph was taken by me using an old 4x5 Speed Graphic camera on the station platform at the San Jose passenger depot, probably around 1960. There are several things to note.

First, this photo could never be duplicated because passenger train #98 no longer runs. This train was known as the Daylight and ran between San Francisco and Los Angeles. It operated daily, leaving San Francisco in the morning and arriving in Los Angeles in the evening. The trip was a delight because it followed the coastline for much of the way, and when not along the coast it ran through oak-covered valleys. A companion train, #99, operated in the opposite direction, leaving Los Angeles at approximately the same time each morning so the two trains would meet roughly halfway. There were also two additional trains called the Starlight, which left both Los Angeles and San Francisco in the evening.

These trains were known collectively as the Streamliners. None of them operate any longer and haven't for many years. This was near the end of the luxury passenger train era — the airlines were taking over the passenger business. The trains all had dining cars that served real meals cooked on board by fine chefs, lounge cars serving drinks of all kinds, private suites, and domed observation cars for viewing the scenery. All in all it was a relaxing, enjoyable way to travel.

The second thing to note is the man standing with what appears to be a slender pole in his hand. This is the telegraph operator at San Jose handing operating orders up to the fireman as the train moves past. The operating orders give the train permission to operate beyond San Jose on its trip to Los Angeles. The reason I know the train is in motion is that the headlights are illuminated.

The third thing is the freight cars visible on the left side of the picture. That is a train entering the freight yard from Los Angeles. Because there is only a single track coming into the yard from the south, the freight train must clear the track before the passenger train can leave.

Most of this yard no longer exists. Many of the tracks have been removed and replaced with a business office complex. Other freight yard locations have also been replaced by commercial developments — this is especially true in San Francisco and Oakland. There was a freight yard in San Francisco called Mission Bay that was converted into a $5.5 billion commercial project. As the railroad's freight and passenger business declined, the railroad developed its land commercially. Because railroad land was often located in the heart of large cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, and Portland, it was extremely valuable. Just before I left California, one of my duties was to decide which railroad property in the Bay Area could be made available for non-railroad development.

There were basically three modes of transportation for the division staff: the hi-rail car, the business car, and riding on a locomotive. The business car is the same type of railroad car used by presidents when traveling the country on political campaigns — very comfortable, with bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, and an observation platform at the rear that allows a fine view of the railroad as the train travels. The drawback is that it is tied to the rear of a train and less versatile than the hi-rail, which can be taken off the tracks and driven on the highway.

The third way to inspect is to ride on a train, usually in the locomotive cab. When I rode on the engine I enjoyed operating the locomotive. Of the three methods, the hi-rail was by far the most efficient — it could operate at passenger train speeds and, if train congestion became a problem, you could simply take it off the tracks and drive on the highway. The black and white photo above was taken in the early 1960s when the hi-rail was a station wagon. By the 1980s it had been upgraded to a Chevrolet Suburban, which was much sturdier.

I used the hi-rail a great deal. In my last year working for the railroad, one of my personal goals was to hi-rail every mile of main line track in my area of responsibility — all of Arizona, all of New Mexico, and part of Texas. This was an ambitious goal covering many hundreds of miles, but finding time to get out of the office and stay in touch with both the employees and the physical plant was important, even when difficult to schedule.

Because of the distances involved I also used several types of aircraft. Scheduled airlines when available, charter flights to smaller airstrips when not. The smaller twin-engine charter planes fly at roughly the same altitude and speed as the airlines, but can land almost anywhere with a runway. Helicopters were used when even small planes couldn't reach a location. In Arizona and New Mexico this amounted to at least one charter or helicopter flight per week.

These four photographs were taken from the hi-rail car during an inspection trip to assess flood damage to the Southern Pacific tracks in central California. Under normal conditions there would be no water visible in any of these locations. The hi-rail car made it possible to reach locations that were almost inaccessible by any other means.

The flooding occurred in 1983. I did not know it at the time, but I would face additional flood-related problems the following year in Arizona and New Mexico.

Shortly before these pictures were taken we had a near-tragic derailment of an Amtrak train just after it left the Oakland depot bound for Chicago. We were very fortunate that there were no serious injuries, even though several cars and locomotives derailed as a result of a washed-out culvert.

The Central Pacific was what the Southern Pacific Railroad was originally called. The Central Pacific and the Union Pacific were the two railroads that linked the entire continent together. The Central Pacific started building eastward from Sacramento, California, and the Union Pacific started westward from Omaha, Nebraska — both during the Civil War. The railroads met at Promontory, Utah in 1869. Because the war was still being fought while the railroad was being built, both companies used whatever rail was available. After the war ended, the inferior rail was replaced with much better quality material as quickly as possible. The piece in this photograph is that new replacement rail, rolled in 1881.

The photographs above are of the Central Pacific Locomotive Jupiter. This locomotive almost did not make it to the golden spike ceremony in 1869 — on the way, while pulling a special train carrying Central Pacific dignitaries and guests, it was damaged in a derailment near Donner Lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Emergency repairs were made in Reno, Nevada that allowed it to continue on to the ceremony. After the ceremony the engine was used in regular service for many years, then scrapped. However the Jupiter was eventually salvaged and rebuilt in the Southern Pacific's locomotive shops in Sacramento, California, and is now on display at the National Historic Site at Promontory Point.

In this photograph the distances are deceiving — it looks as if it is only a few feet from the track bed to the sand in the creek, but that distance is actually 15 feet or more. I should note that even though this would be considered a very expensive derailment — mainly because of the cost of cleanup and rebuilding the railroad and locomotives — it would only rate about a four on a scale of one to ten.

I participated in the cleanup of several in the nine and ten category. These usually involve the public, evacuations, hazardous materials, fire, and injuries or death to either employees or the public. In the more serious situations government departments become involved, and that is rarely good. In all major derailments — and even minor ones involving interstate freight where there are injuries — the Federal Transportation Safety Board sends an investigator to the scene.

In most instances I knew the investigator, and because of mutual respect we were able to cooperate and stay out of each other's way. With local, state, and even federal law enforcement it was often another matter. In many cases they hindered the containment of hazardous materials and the restoration of the railroad by not allowing railroad crews to approach the problem and take corrective measures.

The railroad knew the contents of every car in every train. If there was a car carrying hazardous materials, any railroad official could have a printout of the material name and characteristics within minutes. But even with this information in hand, a law enforcement officer would often evacuate the area and keep railroad employees away simply because he was uncertain of his own role. As a result, the person took what he considered the safe course, even though it was often not.

Another problem was what I called the cowboy syndrome — with the cop being the cowboy. Law enforcement officers are often aggressive by nature; that is part of why they chose the profession. Most of their working life feels routine. When something exciting comes along, they are not going to pass up the chance to shine. The result can be impulsive decisions made to exert authority rather than solve the problem.

Consider the California Highway Patrolman who shut down the San Francisco Bay Bridge at the start of the afternoon rush hour because he spotted a white powdery material on the roadway. The bridge was closed to all traffic for several hours until a lab could analyze a sample. The white substance turned out to be gypsum — a perfectly harmless product used as a soil amendment or in construction. The shutdown caused the largest traffic snarl in Bay Area history. And yet both the head of the California Highway Patrol and the media praised the patrolman for his difficult decision, invoking the old "what if" to justify his actions.

But back to the derailment. The cause was a thunderstorm the preceding night that sent an unusual amount of water flowing under the bridge. More water than the creek bed could handle backed up against the bridge abutment on the right-hand side and eroded the soil and roadbed behind it. The eroded roadbed caused the track to collapse under the weight of the locomotives. The miracle is that the lead locomotive — carrying the crew — crossed without derailing and no one was injured.

After the initial derailment, we had additional thunderstorms in the area within the next few days, and the Santa Cruz River changed course and eroded approximately two more miles of track from under the roadbed. Fortunately no more trains were lost. Each of the white cars in the photograph is loaded with approximately 140 tons of bulk cement, which makes them particularly difficult to move.

Within about three hours of when the first pictures were taken we had assembled a virtual army of people and equipment at the site. It took approximately 36 hours to upright all of the locomotives, re-rail them, and move them to the Tucson locomotive terminal for temporary repairs before sending them to Sacramento, California for a complete rebuild. All of the railroad cars except two were re-railed and moved for repair. The two that could not be re-railed were buried in the ground to help hold the soil in case of more high water.

During the afternoon of the day the pictures were taken, heavy rain fell in Mexico over the headwaters of the Santa Cruz River, sending much more water through the area and causing additional problems with the work in progress. Many of the men and much of the equipment had to be brought to the site by rail. The larger pieces — cranes, end-loaders, bulldozers — were moved across the river by fording, as there was no highway bridge nearby.

At approximately 3:00 a.m. the following morning I decided I needed to go home for rest. Before leaving I told the next in command to make sure no one attempted to cross the river in a four-wheel-drive vehicle — I felt it was too dangerous. I had only been home a couple of hours when the Chief Dispatcher called to say several employees had tried to cross in a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and that at the exact moment they were in the middle of the river a wall of water had come down and carried the vehicle and its occupants downstream. He said there had been fatalities but didn't know how many.

Obviously this ended my rest. I called for a helicopter and was taken back to the site. By the time I arrived I had determined that the vehicle had been washed about 100 yards downstream — but there were no injuries, only a destroyed vehicle. We had plucked the employees from the roof of the vehicle by helicopter without incident. The fact there were no injuries was comforting, but I will say the second-in-command had to suffer the full brunt of my wrath. I did not dismiss him from employment, for reasons I am still not entirely sure of.

This derailment occurred between Tucson and Nogales, Arizona in 1984. During the monsoon seasons of 1983 and 1984 there was more rain than in any previous monsoon season in the past 100 years, blamed on El Niño. The Southern Pacific lost many miles of track in several locations during that period.

Within two weeks we had another similar derailment approximately 200 miles west of Tucson, between Gila Bend and Yuma. The difference was that the second train was traveling at 70 miles per hour, compared to 40 in the first. There were 50 or more cars involved, stacked in a pile.

In my years on the railroad I personally supervised the cleanup of probably 25 derailments of this magnitude, and several hundred minor ones earlier in my career. Considering that my job was to run a tight ship and prevent such things from happening, it is not something to be proud of. I once told my boss that it is a sorry thing when one of your greatest talents is dealing with derailments. He agreed.

At least many of the root causes of derailments in Arizona and New Mexico had been eliminated by the time I retired. Some were the result of deferred maintenance to the physical plant and equipment accumulated over many years when the Southern Pacific was a struggling private company. The improvements made during my tenure cost approximately $400 million and included several hundred miles of main line and auxiliary track, many structures, and a great deal of new equipment. It was a painful time — coordinating the repair work while maintaining as close to normal operations and schedules as possible — but the railroad had a wonderful, high-speed, efficient plant in the end.

The piece of 1881 Central Pacific rail shown earlier in this page led me to visit Promontory Point and the National Historic Site there. It is well worth the trip for anyone interested in the history of the American West. The restored locomotives — including the Jupiter — are remarkable, and standing near the actual site of the golden spike ceremony is something you don't forget.