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HWY 40, Donner Pass

Early on a Monday morning I drove to Historic Highway 40, around Donner Summit, to do some sketching.

I love this highway corridor, it’s full of deep California history (native, pioneer, railroad, and highway) as well as personal family history. My parents met at the South Bay Ski Club whose cabin is on Highway 40 near Soda Springs. Without this ski club I would not have come into being.

Historic indeed, there is so much depth of history here.

At the summit I sketched a former gas station. The station was used to fuel highway snow clearing equipment used to keep the highway open in the winter.

The Lamson Cashion Donner Summit Hub is where a lot of the threads of Donner Pass come together (hence the name). Just a short list of the points of interest in this general area are: the petroglyphs, Pacific Crest Trail, the Donner Summit Bridge (the Rainbow Bridge), west entrance of Summit Tunnel 6, central shaft of Tunnel 6, and the Donner Summit Trail.

The repurposed gas station is now an information center at the Lamson Cashion Donner Summit Hub.

I then headed down the pass and over the famed “Rainbow Bridge”. I was keeping my eyes (at least one eye) to my left, searching for the mass of rusted metal that has been here for about 75 years. There it was.

My father always pointed out this ominous artifact when we would summer here on the shores of Donner Lake. We were historic rubberneckers.

There it is, rusted and compacted by heavy snow loads for almost 75 years.

Highway 40, east of Donner Summit is treacherous, as the Donner Party found out when they attempted to scale the pass in 1846. It is also treacherous for auto traffic on the winding, wet, and icy roadbed while heading down grade.

The wreck that my father pointed out is the truck chassis that went over the roadway and settled on a granite shelf sometime in the 1950s. There is not a lot of information about the truck, just that it’s not the “Turkey Truck”. That’s a story for a different post!

I pulled over and found a boulder seat to sketch from using a brush pen to keep it loose and sketchy to the soundtrack of the cooling winds through the pine branches and a male Wilson’s warbler emphatically singing from those branches. I was in Sierra heaven (featured sketch).

After sketching I headed down 40 towards Donner Lake and the Southern Pacific Railroad historic town of Truckee.

Aside from SP’s iconic cab forward locomotives, no other piece of railroad equipment is as renowned as the rotary snowplow for conquering the grades and gales of Donner Summit.

The rotary plow kept the line open in the deepest winters. And the California State Railroad Museum donated Southern Pacific’s SPMW 210. This historic piece of rail equipment now is on static display alongside the tracks it once kept open in the winter time.

This monster could cut through heavy snow. I usually sketch these plows head on but I decided on a different perspective.

While I have sketched these plows many times before, I decided to try from a different angle with a broken continuous-line sketch.

A reminder, courtesy of Union Pacific, that Truckee still remains a rail town. The eastbound freight was an empty covered hopper consist. How do I know it’s empty? Motive power. Only two locomotives on point and one at the end. If the consist was fully loaded, they would need more motive power to travel over Donner Summit.
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Nevada City Sketching

One sketching target in Nevada City is the Nevada Hose Company No. 1. (Just to avoid confusion, Nevada City is in California.) I have always wanted to sketch this historic building but had not gotten around to it.

This firehouse is very detailed and complex and it seemed like the perfect subject for a continuous-line sketch. I suppose this method can become an excuse if the sketch turns out all wrong! But there are no mistakes in sketching.

The historic firehouse was opened May 30, 1861 and was in use until 1938. Throughout its history the hose carts were under different motive power: human, horse, and combustion engine.

What’s surprising about this building is that it exists at all. Most wooden structures in Gold Rush towns were destroyed by fire. That would certainly be ironic, a firehouse destroyed by fire.

The firehouse is an iconic symbol for Nevada City.

After my morning’s sketch I drove off to look for other Nevada City sites to add to my sketchbook. I settled on a flat car on static display from the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad.

The railroad ended near here, the depot was destroyed in a fire, and the opposite terminus ended parallel to the mainline in Colfax.

I rendered the car in a loose broken continuous-line sketch.

While reading the interpretive signs for the narrow gauge railroad I read a notice of the upcoming Steam Days at the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum where two of the locomotives in the museum’s collection would be under steam!

One of these days would be today, Father’s Day, and the museum would be opening in 45 minutes. So I knew where I would be next sketching next!

The star of the museum’s collection is the “Tahoe” No. 5. This 2-6-0 Mogul type is a narrow gauge steam locomotive that hauled freight and passengers on the line. The locomotive was built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1875 for the Carson Tahoe Logging & Fluming Company.

A period photo of No. 5 in front of the rail director’s house in Grass Valley.

The locomotive was purchased by the NCNGRR in 1899 where it was in service until the 1940s when it was purchased by the Frank Lloyd Productions to become a Hollywood locomotive. No. 5 was first featured in the John Wayne film, “The Spoilers” (1942).

By the 1970s the locomotive was sitting neglected on the Denver Street back lot at Universal. No. 5 was last featured in the doomed film, “The Twilight Zone”, in 1979. No. 5 was briefly featured in the first segment of the film, featuring actor Vic Morrow who was killed with two child actors in a helicopter accident.

The museum leased the locomotive from Universal and it returned to Nevada City in 1985.

When I first visited the museum with my stepfather, the No. 5 was on static display, having been a movie locomotive for Universal Studios. The locomotive had been electrified and pushed during movie production, and had not been under steam for a really long time. The locomotive was featured in about 100 film productions. So I was excited to see this 1875 locomotive under its own steam power.

Seeing the No. 5 under steam was a thing of beauty! It was like seeing the dead brought back to life.
The third driver is further back from the second to support the weight of the firebox.

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Mare Island and the Muddy Puppy

The former Naval base on Mare Island is a sketcher’s paradise. It’s full of cranes, condemned buildings, dry docks, bridges and rusted rails. Plenty of shapes and perspectives to add to my sketchbook.

On a recent journey to Vallejo to visit a friend, I headed to the ferry terminal across the Napa River from Mare Island to do a park bench continuous line sketch of the river front with the Balclutha moored to the dock (featured sketch).

The 1886 three master (aka Star of Alaska) is temporarily on display here while the pier at the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park is rebuilt.

Also moored nearby is a modern bay ferry which I included in the sketch as a bookend to Bay Area maritime history.

Mare Island Mud Puppy

From my sketching position near the Vallejo Ferry Terminal I was looking across the Napa River towards the location of one of the most infamous sinkings in Mare Island history.

On May 15, 1969 the Sturgeon-class nuclear submarine the USS Guitarro was moored to the pier in the Napa River. The sub had been built and launched (July 27, 1968) on Mare Island and now was still under construction.

Two construction groups were working on different parts of the sub at the same time. They began adding water to the ballast tanks, unbeknownst to each other. The construction groups were warned that the Guitarro was riding low in the water but did not heed the warnings.

At 20:30 (8:30 PM) the groups, after returning from lunch, noticed the sub taking a downward angle and the Guitarro was taking on water from her forward hatches. At 20:55 the Guitarro sank to the bottom of the river leaving her sail above the waterline thus earning the dubious nickname: “Mare Island Mud Puppy”.

The sub was refloated a few days later and damages were estimated to be between $15 and $22 million. The sinking of the Guitarro put an end to submarine construction and repair at Mare Island. Mare Island Naval Shipyard was once the premier West Coast submarine port. The last sub built at Mare Island was the USS Drum in 1970.

The USS Guitarro was commissioned (32 months late) on September 9, 1972. She was in service until 1992 when she was decommissioned and scrapped at Puget Sound, Washington in 1994.

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Point Pinos Lighthouse

On NPR I heard a report on the Newshour about lighthouses and their women keepers.

One lighthouse featured was the Point Pinos Lighthouse in Pacific Grove, just northwest of Monterey. What I didn’t know but learned from the report was that the lighthouse is the oldest light in continuous use on the West Coast. So it seemed like a great Saturday morning sketch adventure.

The light first shown its beam on February 1, 1855. The current lens is a 3rd-order Fresnel Lens that was built in Paris, France in 1853 which is the lighthouse’s original lens. In clear weather the light can be seen from 17 miles at sea. In dense fog the foghorns are activated.

The first woman lighthouse keeper was Charlotte Layton. She became keeper when her husband, the first keeper at Point Pinos, was murdered by while taking part in a posse to capture the bandit Anastasio Garcia. Garcia got Layton first. She was the keeper from 1856-1860.

Perhaps the lighthouse’s most famous female keeper is Emily Fish, known as the “Socialite Keeper” for her entertaining at the lighthouse. She served as keeper from 1893 to 1914. While she was not the first woman lighthouse keeper at Pt. Pinos, she was the last.

Emily Fish’s bedroom at the lighthouse.

When I arrived at the lighthouse just after 11, I was greeted by Nancy, the docent interviewed on the Newshour. I told her I was here because of seeing the lighthouse featured on the news.

I jokingly asked her if she had signed many autographs yet.

The observation room with great views of the Pacific Ocean. You feel this was a room where Emily Fish spent time filling out the keeper logs.

I walked around the lighthouse to look for a sketching perspective and thought the view from the front would do just fine (featured sketch).

On the lighthouse grounds is the only remainder of the freighter Gipsy: her anchor. This is a reminder of why lighthouses exist, to let sailors at sea know where they are and that land is near. And hopefully the two shall not meet, well not at speed anyway.

The Gipsy hauled freight and people up and down the California Coast from San Francisco to San Diego. The ship was known as “Old Perpetual Motion”. On a foggy night on September 27, 1905, the ship was going from San Francisco to Monterey when the inexperienced relief captain mistook a red marker construction light for the marker at the end of Monterey wharf. The ship was wrecked on the rocks near McAbee Beach. The ship was a total loss.

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Sacramento Valley National Cemetery

As a tribute to Flag Day and Father’s Day I did a sketch at a National Cemetery.

My stepfather, a Vietnam Veteran, was laid to rest at the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery in Dixon.

The military service was very moving, especially when Taps was played.

When Steve was laid to rest, the tombstones were backlogged so I knew I wanted to return to see and sketch the military marker.

The plot before the tombstone was added. Buried with Steve is his Silver Star citation.

One my way up to my mother’s on my official first day of summer, I stopped at the National Cemetery just after it opened at 8 AM on a Friday morning.

Cars were already lined up for a morning service and there were plenty of cars parked in the parking lot.

The tall flag pole at the center of the cemetery had the Stars and Stripes flying at full staff.

The austere markers all look the same, the marble soldiers stand in lines. There are limits on what text you can place on a military marker. Short and to the point without much flowery rhapsodizing.

I found Steve’s marker and I was surprised to see how many markers had fallen in line since my visit about a month ago.

I picked a sketching perspective with Steve’s marker in the foreground and the line of marble reaching out to the distant trees. Above the trees was the flag at full staff (featured sketch).

Shortly after my sketch the flag was lowered to half staff, a sign of mourning. I later found out that at Arlington National Cemetery, flags are lowered to half staff, half an hour before the first funeral of the day and a half an hour after the last funeral of the day. I expect this National Cemetery follows the same procedures as its more famous eastern counterpart.

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SFO From the Bay Trail

My Tuesday after work sketch took me to the San Francisco Bay Trail which parallels Runways 28R and 28L and Taxiway F.

These are the two runways that handle most international traffic at San Francisco International Airport. In my two hours there, I saw planes landing or taking off from airlines such as Cathay Pacific, Condor (German), Lufthansa, SAS, Aer Lingus, Virgin Atlantic, Qatar, Iberian, Swiss, TAP Air (Portugal), Turkish Airlines, Zipair (Japan), and British Airways. San Francisco is really an international destination.

This trail and Bayfront Park are a well known location for plane spotting as you have unobstructed views of planes taxiing, taking off, and landing.

I was here to see the large passenger jet that largely replaced Boeing’s 747 on long distance international routes.

In an uncanny coincidence a Lufthansa 747-8 was on Taxiway F headed to Runway 28R when I was driving down Millbrae Avenue toward the airport. After I parked and walked up to the Bay Trail the 747 was throttling up for takeoff. Only four airlines currently have 747s in their fleet: Lufthansa, Korean Air, Air China, and Rossiya.

One of the few Boeing 747s throttling up for takeoff on Runway 28R. This is a 747-8, the largest 747 and Boeing’s largest passenger jet. This “stretched” 747 was designed to compete with the A380.

I was here to see the big boy that competed with the 747, Airbus’s A380. Two airlines fly A380s out of SFO, British Airways and Emirates. BA flight 284 was scheduled to depart at 16:20. But the flight was running a little late, which seems to be the norm.

The Bay Trail in the foreground and British Airways A380 is pulling away from Gate A11. This is one of 12 in BA’s fleet.
Flight 284 on the Taxiway F for Foxtrot. This airplane is so large that the suffix “Super” is part of its call sign.
This photo shows the scale of the world’s largest passenger plane compared to others on the tarmac. The aircraft in front of the A380 is an Air Canada Boeing 737 Max 8.
A380 on its way to line up for takeoff as a much smaller United Airlines jet lands.
Gear up with the South San Francisco sign below and San Bruno Mountain above.

Sketching Notes

I found a tree stump seat with the taxiways and runways in front of me. I first sketched in the fill as the runways are surround by the bay on three sides. In the background I penciled in the East Bay hills and mountains including Mt. Diablo. The tide was low when I stared sketching but was slowly filling in during the two hours of my visit.

Later I would add two planes on the taxiway, based on photographs taken in the field.

To my left and in the distance I could see the red, white, and blue tail of the A380 at Gate A11.

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A380 Over the Golden Gate

In 2025, the largest passenger jet turns 20.

This is the Airbus A380. The A380 is truly an impressive aircraft which I had the pleasure of flying on from SFO to Frankfurt on Lufthansa (the airline currently operates eight A380s but they no longer use them to fly out of SFO).

The A380 is a full double decker with a flight range of 9,200 miles and a capacity of 850 passengers. It is larger than Boeing’s 747 and is designed for long range international flights.

On my afterwork walks I noticed a northbound British Airways A380 at around 5 PM each day. This is flight BA 284. The flight path parallels Ocean Beach and then turns northeast heading toward the Polar route over Greenland to its final destination of Heathrow Airport. I often watch it until it disappears with distance.

After work I wanted to get a sketching perch perspective facing north with the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin Headlands, and Mt. Tamalpais at the base of the panoramic spread and the A380 flying above. Sunset Reservoir fits the bill.

I headed to the northwest corner of the reservoir to Sunset Reservoir Park with a brand new Delta Stillman & Birn sketchbook.

While I was sketching a man and a woman were walking up the path speaking French. I assumed they were from the Lycee Francais de San Francisco school just up Ortega. They had come to take in the amazing views. The woman walked over and asked if I was part of the urban sketchers. I replied that I was not and she told me that she liked to sketch too.

Then she and the man did something that boggled my sketcher’s mind which can be summed up in the following photo:

Yes, unbelievably they commented on my sketching and then turned around to stand between myself and my subject!

My plan was to do a loose sketch of the A380 as it headed northeast. Luckily the French couple moved on to take some more selfies with the distant Golden Gate Bridge in the background, before I had to ask them politely, to get out of my way!

Flight 284 is scheduled to depart SFO at 16:20. It seems it was running a bit late as the A380 passed by at 5:03.

A Heathrow bound British Airways A380 flies past the Sunset Reservoir.

SFO Runway 28R

I had sketched and photographed BA Flight 284 as it passed over western San Francisco and now I wanted to witness an A380 take off, head on!

One of the best ways to look down Runway 28R (SFO’s longest) is to cross Highway 101 on San Bruno Avenue. Here you can look down the runway towards aircraft taxiing into position for take off.

As a side note, runways are named after their magnetic heading to the nearest ten degrees so 28 degrees and the R stands for “right” to differentiate the runway from the parallel runway to the left: 28L.

Flight 284 was late getting out of the gate and I spotted the giant, shark like tail fin, sporting the Union Jack, as it crept towards the runway.

The A380 pulling onto Runway 28R. With the distance, the plane looks like a mirage.
Flight 284 climbs off Runway 28R at 150 knots heading right toward me!
Gear up, the A380 flying overhead.
Next stop (10 hours 35 minutes later) Heathrow Airport.
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Loma Prieta Bell’s Sparrow

In late May I made my annual pilgrimage to the birding hotspot Loma Prieta (Upper Saddle).

I left my cabin at 6:40 AM and 35 minutes later I pulled into the dirt parking lot on the ridge that straddles Santa Cruz and Santa Clara Counties.

It can be very windy and hemmed in by dense fog up here but not today. I could look down and see fog covering Monterey Bay. Today it was clear and warm without much of a breeze. In fact it was already getting warm.

My target was the pair of Bell’s sparrows that had recently been seen here since mid May. This would be a Santa Clara County bird for me.

I walked down Mt. Madonna Road and aside from singing spotted towhees and wrentits, and a far off babbling California thrasher, it was pretty quiet. I did not hear or see any black-chinned or Bell’s sparrows.

On my way back to the parking lot I first heard and then saw a blue-grey gnatcatcher.

Blue-gray gnatcatcher.

As I headed to the parking lot there were now six other birders in the area, looking for the Bell’s.

As I reached my car a pair of birders had just spotted a pair of Bell’s sparrows right from the parking lot. So I figured I’d stay a bit longer.

I was rewarded about five minutes later when a bird flew towards me and perched on a nearby bush in front of me. Bell’s sparrow! A new county bird!

Bell’s sparrow.

Sketching Notes

Loma Prieta Ridge is one of the best panoramic views in Santa Cruz County. So I took a pause in Bell’s sparrow spotting and opened my panoramic watercolor journal to capture the scene.

What a view, best in the county!

I left the lower left side blank. I initially was going to add a Bell’s sparrow but I hadn’t seen one yet. So I thought I would add a blue-grey gnatcatcher to that corner, based on my field photo.

After seeing the Bell’s from the parking lot, I returned to my original plan and the result is my featured sketch.

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Embarcadero Sunday Sketching

On Sunday I took the N Judah to Embarcadero Station with the intention of sketching a little San Francisco rail history. My main sketching target was the Belt Line Railroad Engine House or Roundhouse at Embarcadero and Sansome.

On the walk from the Ferry Building I came upon the 1927 ferry Santa Rosa at Pier 3 and I thought I would head back after my roundhouse sketch to add this piece of rail and nautical history to my spread.

Bay No. 5 with Coit Tower in the background.

The Belt Line Railroad was founded in 1889. The railroad connected the Port of San Francisco with many of the piers and warehouses. The railroad shipped freight cars from the ferry freight terminal (at Pier 43) for railroads such as the Western Pacific, Northwestern Pacific, and the Aitchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Railway. It also had connections with Southern Pacific on the southern portion of its line. The railroad also served Ft. Mason, the Presidio, and Chrissy Field through the Ft. Mason tunnel.

At its height, the railroad had 67 miles of track. The Belt Line operated 12 steam locomotives and six diesels.

Over time, the Port of San Francisco was eclipsed by the Port of Oakland and shipping traffic slowed. The railroad eventually folded in 1993.

Before me was the reinforced concrete Belt Railroad Engine House or Roundhouse. It was built in 1913 and is now designated as City and County of San Francisco Landmark #114.

The house contains five bays with five tracks snaking out of each bay. The tracks disappear under paving at the intersection of Chestnut and Embarcadero. It was nice to see that some of the the rails were still in place although the engine house now houses another business.

PCC car No. 1050 passes by the Engine House on the F Line. The car is painted in St. Louis livery.

After my sketch I headed back to the Santa Rosa and found a nice sketching bench.

For this sketch I chose to keep it loose and render the ferry in a continuous line sketch. Although I did lift my pen a few times to add some details and shading. So I’ll call it a broken line continuous sketch. For this sketch I experimented with a thicker more expressive pen, my Faber-Castell FM (Fude Medium). I love sketching with this pen!

The Santa Rosa was built in 1927 for the Northwestern Pacific Railroad and was in service until 1968. She was sold to the Puget Sound Navigation Company in 1940 and was renamed MV Enetai. She returned to San Francisco Bay in 1968 and sat unused until Hornblower purchased the ferry in 1989.

The Santa Rosa is now the corporate offices of Hornblower.
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The Bayshore Yard and Roundhouse

I was on the hunt for some Bay Area rail history. I was specifically looking for some ghosts of the Southern Pacific Railroad: the Bayshore Yard.

I started my search at the Bayshore Caltrain Station. Uncanny! Who would have thought?

An EMU at Bayshore Station. I was here to see the overgrown fields beyond the tracks.

To the west of the tracks is a large overgrown open space punctuated by wooden power poles and bordered by the San Bruno Mountains. On the far edge of the open fields are some dilapidated and graffitied buildings.

The brick roundhouse and the tank and boiler shop are the only remaining structures of a once bustling train yard and shops. How bustling?

The yard contain 50-65 miles of track, had a capacity of over 2,000 freight cars, and employed 3,000 people.

This was SP’s most heavily travelled stretch with 46.5 million gross tons per mile during WWII.

The story of the yard and shops starts with the Bayshore Cutoff.

This drawing is highly influenced by a map John Signor drew from his excellent book on the Coast Line.

As the name implies the Bayshore Cutoff is a short cut that straighten the line around San Bruno Mountain’s southern edge, from San Francisco to San Bruno.

A southbound EMU seven car set leaving Bayshore Station under the tangle of signal gantries and power lines. To the right is the former yard. The current line is along the Bayshore Cutoff.

The cutoff was completed 1907 and cost Southern Pacific $7 million. One reason for the high price tag is that the railroad had to construct five tunnels (20% of the cutoff was in tunnels). The fill from these tunnels was used to fill in Brisbane Lagoon which became Bayshore Yard and Shops.

The benefits of the cutoff were: saving more than three miles on the route, reducing the curvature of the line, and flattening the grade. The improvements cut travel time from San Francisco to San Jose by 30 minutes. The cutoff is still in use today, conveying passengers to and from San Francisco on Caltrain.

For my Bayshore sketch I took a position on the southbound platform and sketched the Bayshore Station sign in the foreground and the feral field and roundhouse in the background. In the far ground is San Bruno Mountain.

After work I headed up to Brisbane with the intent of sketching the roundhouse from Bayshore Boulevard. The roundhouse is close to the street but the former yard is enclosed in fencing. I was able to find a gap in the eucalyptus trees to get a panoramic sketch (sans graffiti) of Southern Pacific’s Bayshore roundhouse.

The brick shell of the Bayshore Roundhouse.