San Jose, California (Part II)

Link: http://arotus.co/q76

• Quick Info:
• States: California   
• Railroads: UP, WP   

The San Jose Branch

Picture

Point of Interest

Map submitted by Paul Carr.

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This view faces west. The ties stacked on the track act as a barrier blocking the former diamond over the SP/UP Coast line. This diamond has now been "straight railed". The bridge is for CA Route 87/Guadalupe Freeway; the Coast Line runs parallel to it in this area. Photo by Mike Palmer, October, 2003.

The Western Pacific reached Oakland in the early 1900s after the other rail lines in the area were already established. A branch from Niles to San Jose was completed in 1921, and is the southernmost part of the WP. A map of the branch shows it was shaped like a "J", with the hook curving around the south and west sides of San Jose. (See also Niles to Milpitas.)

It crossed the SP main and a few SP branches along its route. The WP was absorbed by the UP in 1982, but it wasn't until the SP was also merged into the UP (1996) that the last few miles of the branch were abandoned. Several connecting industrial spurs have also been pulled up recently.

As of fall 2003 the tracks are "out of service" between William Street Yard (east side of San Jose) through Valbrick (former SP spur crossing) to the former SP coast line crossing (CP Michael). Beyond that location, through West San Jose (SP Permanente branch crossing) to the end of the branch, most of the rails and ties were removed in 2003. Some rails remain at grade crossings, but the signals are removed or have "Tracks Removed From Service" signs on them. In a couple of places near West San Jose, buildings are under construction on the former right-of-way. Meanwhile, a small section near the end of the branch, used for a customer, has been connected to the UP/SP Permanente Branch. (As of late 2003 the Permanante branch was being double tracked for use as a future light rail line, while still maintaining freight service).

I was very sad to see these tracks get pulled up in 2004. It passed by the San Jose Municipal Stadium, home of the San Jose Giants, a Minor League baseball team. I never actually saw a train on these tracks, but it must have been a site no train-lover wanted to miss.

Andy Sammonds
San Jose, CA
1/1/2010

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I was at a San Jose Giants game in the mid-1990s and saw a UP switcher run with a single car around the stadium and it ran back light a short time later. That was the only time I ever saw anything.

Paul Carr
San Jose, CA
10/21/2010

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I actually got to see a small run on the tracks around Municipal Stadium. I think it might have just been a turning of the train, but it was still an interesting sight to watch during the game. I believe this might have been around summer 2002 so it may have also been to clear the tracks for their removal.

Anthony Madrid
Pflugerville, TX
2/12/2011

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Also, portions of the track are still visible at the intersection of Sunol and San Carlos, though the portions north had long since been abandon and covered (by 2003 there was nothing to indicate there was ever anything there). The tracks running parallel to Lincoln was kept in good shape (though I never saw a train on it) and were just as quickly removed. I was commuting on the the bus at the time, and they would always have to stop at the crossing on Coe just before Lincoln. It seemed like they only needed a month to remove all of the track through Willow Glen.

Anthony Madrid
Pflugerville, TX
2/12/2011

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I was born and raised in Willow Glen. My parents house was just a few blocks from the tracks that crossed Minnesota Ave, guarded by a Wig-Wag. As a kid in the 60s, I used to see virtually daily activity along this line with WP switchers doing their deliveries and picking up empties, part of which was from Simon's Nursery located on Bird Ave.

I've watched WP activity behind the San Jose Giants stadium as well(then the team was called the San Jose Bees), when I used to go to their games.

The crossing across Minnesota Ave was not without its hazards. Sometime during the mid 60s, a tractor-trailer rig pulling a set of doubles laden with tomatoes on its way to the San Jose Cannery, which backed up against the SP Coast Line tracks, collided with a WP train. Either the driver didn't see the wig-wag operating or was trying to beat the train. Regardless, tomatoes were scattered everywhere, with the truck and load lying on its side. Saw that aftermath on my way home from elementary school. Never forgot that!

But a lot of memories I carry of the WP. Sounds of the horn during the day and sometimes at night as well, along with the burbling sounds their switchers made, which could be heard a fair distance, the clicking of the wheels over jointed track, the warning striping taped or painted on the front of the locomotives, and on and on.

As an aside, during the late 90s, my company had a warehouse near Monterey Rd, where the very WP track crossed it. The tracks ran behind it but was pretty much dormant by then. UP, of course, had bought the WP and one day, we had the back warehouse door open and my co-worker and I observed a UP MOW crew running a track grinding machine up and down the right-of-way, followed by another vehicle, which I presumed, was checking the track gauge. It was only a couple of years later, that the UP pulled up the tracks, a line that was never to see another train again. To me, that was the UPs loss as well as San Jose. On occasion, I drive by my old neighborhood and can see the remnants of the old ROW scattered not only across Willow Glen, but in other parts of the city. Just something weird and an empty feeling to see no more tracks in what I thought was a part of daily life, growing up in what once was a great area to live in.

Jose J Pagan
San Jose, CA
8/29/2011

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