This large Southern Pacific yard was built in the early 1900s along the bay to replace the SP's smaller inland yard. The yard soon served as the heavy locomotive shops for the SP and some of its subsidiaries, and thus was one of the last locations for SP steam in the country. The shops closed in the mid 1950s, in the era of dieselization, but the yard continued on as one of the larger classification yards in San Francisco. Incidentally, the yard also served as the maintenance home for SP's fleet of Fairbanks-Morse H24-66 TrainMasters. The yard slowly diminished in time, and by the 1980s, had completely vanished.

Today, only two storage tracks exist that mark the location of this once-great yard. Part of the roundhouse is still standing, along with a few various other structures.