California

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UP Eckley Crossing: 748331G (M. P. 27.30)

My Saturday morning sketch location was the pedestrian rail crossing at Eckley Pier in the Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline.

A sign any educator can appreciate.

This pedestrian crossing is quite unusual because there are no crossing gates preventing pedestrians, wanting to go to the fishing pier, from heading across two very busy tracks of the Union Pacific main line.

No rusted rails here but polished high iron from lots of use.

I got to the park at 8 AM, when the gates open, and I had plenty of time to catch the Chicago bound California Zephyr No. 6 as it was scheduled to skirt along the southern shore of the Carquinez Strait just shy of 9 AM.

The Zephyr is one of the longest routes operated by AMTRAK (2,438 miles) and as such has the lowest on-time percentage (33%) of any long distance route, primarily because the passenger service is at the whim of their host railroad’s (UP and BNSF) freight traffic. No. 6 should be on time because it left its western terminus of Emeryville at 8:25 AM. It usually gets behind schedule while stopped behind a freight in Nevada or Utah.

I took a position just south of the parallel tracks to sketch the light signal and crossbuck of the pedestrian crossing.

I also had time to get a sketch of another piece of railroad and nautical history: the rusted boilers and paddle wheel hubs of the SS Garden City.

The Garden City was a Southern Pacific ferry that ferried people and automobiles across the waters of the bay. She was built in 1879 and was 208 feet long and weighed 1,080 tons. The wooden side-wheeler had a crew of 19.

The construction of bridges like the Carquinez and Golden Gate rendered the ferries obsolete and in the 1930s, the Garden City was moored at a pier near the current Eckley Pier and it was used as a restaurant and fishing pier until she was abandoned in the 1970s. In 1983, the ferry burned to the boilers, which is about all that remains of this once proud vessel.

What’s left of the SS Garden City in the foreground and one of the bridges that made her obsolete in the background.

It was now nearing nine so I headed across the tracks to take up a position. Down rail the retort of the horn reached me as the Zephyr blew the crossing at Crockett. Shortly thereafter the crossing signal activated with red lights and bell and the Zephyr appeared around the bend.

A GE P42DC 187 is on point of the California Zephyr as she heads towards her next stop: Martinez.
Zephyr No. 6 crossing the pedestrian walkway at Eckley. This is my favorite car to ride in while traversing the Sierras and the Rockies: the observation car!
A Capital Corridor heads towards Crockett past the fishing pier and the ruins of the Garden City.

Sketching Notes

Before heading out to Eckley, I pre visualize my sketch. I practice sketching the perspective and location and drew the Superliner train cars that would be a part of the train’s consist so I would be able to draw the cars into my sketch after the train had past. This is using sketcher’s “muscle memory” so drawing the cars would become almost second nature.

A loose continuous line pre-sketch of the pedestrian crossing.

What I drew on location was the foreground and background eucalyptus and then I added the long distance Zephyr from memory. One thing I might do differently is to sketch the train looser to convey the sense of motion.

For my sketch of the Garden City, the core of the sketch was done as a continuous line sketch and I then lifted my pen and add more details.

Both sketches are with my TWSBI Eco fountain pen.

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Broadway Station

On Monday I did an afterwork sketch of the closed Atherton Station on the Caltrain route and now on Friday I headed to North Burlingame to do another after work sketch of a Caltrain station: Broadway.

The peeling train sticker on the sign is a living metaphor for the downtrodden Broadway Station.

With a name like Broadway, you’d think of a busy station with lots of passenger traffic and a station with a staffed ticket office, a waiting room lined with wooden benches, and perhaps a cafe. Sure that might have been the picture over 70 years ago. Now here is the ticket window:

And there is no cafe. And no passengers for that matter.

Like Atherton, the new electric EMUs speed by this station. The train only stops here on weekends, which is more than can said for Atherton, and the former station is now a restaurant. The platform has some benches, a few shelters, and a sign that reads “No Loitering”. Is sketching a form of loitering?

Looking north toward San Francisco with the former station, now a restaurant, on the left.

The Broadway Station suffers from diminishing ridership and a center loading island platform for northbound trains. This means that a hold-out rule is in effect which means that if a train is in the station, a train heading in the opposite direction must wait outside the station until the other leaves before pulling in. This creates delays and is a major reason the station was closed on weekdays on August 1, 2005.

This southbound EMU is not stopping here.

The original station was opened by Southern Pacific in 1911. The station was renamed Buri Buri in 1917 and then to its current name in 1926.

My field sketch and a southbound EMU speeding by at Broadway.

Sketching Notes

During my lunch I sketched out the scene I wanted to sketch on an index card. This is like a storyboard for a tricky scene in a film. What I wanted to do was convey a sense of stillness and motion. The stillness of the shelter and the motion of the train speeding by. In the presketch, or storyboard, I exaggerated the lines of the train. They are curved and kinetic while the shelter remains calm and pedestrian.

Perhaps I could have exaggerated the lines more in my field sketch. That would entail sketching things that aren’t there in front of me. Like sketching in another dimension.

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Next Stop, Atherton

On my weekend Caltrain ride to Palo Alto, we sped past the former passenger shelter at Atherton.

I remember that this used to be a stop on the commuter line but I later found out it had been permanently closed since December 19, 2020.

Where had I been?

I returned to Atherton to sketch the lonely railroad shelter where passengers no longer detrain or board.

There are a few things to know about the San Mateo County town of Atherton (population 6,823). Atherton had been ranked as having the highest concentration of wealth per capita for a town of its size anywhere in the United States. The town also has the highest median house price in the country at an astonishing $7,950,000!

And then there is the infamous Atherton police blotter. Here are a few examples, and yes these are real: “A man was reported to be sitting down and talking to himself. Police made contact and confirmed he was using a cellphone”, “A resident worried that a noisy hawk in a tree was in distress. When authorities arrived, the hawk was quiet and enjoying dinner”, “Police assisted an Atherton man in a San Francisco bar who forgot where he was and called 9-1-1”, “A family reported being followed by a duck who resides on Tuscaloosa Avenue”, and this takes the cake: “A resident reported a large light in the sky. It was the moon”.

From these police blotter examples we can tell that Athertonians are a vigilant and concerned group of citizens.

When Caltrain announced that they would be electrifying the line, the town of Atherton sued Caltrain alleging the construction would damage some heritage trees. Atherton lost the lawsuit and electrification continued.

A train station without a train.

This is not a great way to treat a rail service that has stopped to pick up passengers in the town since 1866 when the first station opened under the then named Fair Oaks.

Southern Pacific replaced the first structure in 1913. This is the core design of the shelter that remains to this day. The shelter was enlarged in 1954 and later rebuilt in 1990.

A northbound EMU speeds by the closed shelter. A barrier fence separates the platform from the busy rails. In the featured sketch I left the fence out.

In 2005 weekday service to Atherton was suspended because of low ridership. The station averaging only 122 boardings a day compared to nearby Redwood City at 4,212 boardings per day. The low ridership combined with improvements needed ($30 million in improvements) to the aging center loading platform island meant that this train stop was doomed.

Perhaps a fitting end for a town that sued to halt progress but in the end now watches the future pass them by.

A busy afternoon in Atherton. During my 45 minute visit, five trains sped past the station. This one is northbound to San Francisco.

I did an afterwork sketch and I can imagine a new police blotter posting: “A strange man was sitting down near Atherton Station. Turns out he was only sketching.”

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Caltraining

Last fall the new Sadler electric multiple unit sets (EMU) were put into service on the Caltrain route from San Francisco to San Jose and I had been meaning to ride aboard ever since.

So on a gloomy spring morning in late April, I boarded an inbound N Judah to the Caltrain Station at 4th and King.

I was picking a travel window that was not going to be too chaotic with first pitch scheduled at 1:05 at the Giant’s game. Lots of fans use the N Judah and Caltrain to get to the game.

I planned to catch southbound train 610 departing at 9:55 AM and detrain in Palo Alto for lunch on University Avenue.

Two of the new EMUs at the San Francisco Caltrain Station.

My goal was to bring one pen (TWSBI Eco) and one watercolor journal (Stillman & Birn Delta panoramic) and only use continuous line sketching.

Before catching my train I sketched one of the new units on Track No. 8. (Featured sketch).

The gates opened and I boarded the train and was impressed with the bi-level design. I chose a seat on the top level sitting on the west facing side of the train (where all the historic stations are located).

Before the train left I did a continuous line sketch of the interior from my upper deck seat-view. This sketching style loosens up your work including perspective. Normally I would pencil in the vanishing point and convergent lines but this sketching style is absolutely feral!

This takes a little getting used to because loosening up your sketching style causing you to loosen up your perspective of the style.

The view of one of my favorite stations on the line: Burlingame. This station is one of the earliest examples of the Mission Revival style and was highly influential in California when it was opened in 1894.
An EMU at Palo Alto, Caltrain’s second busiest station after San Francisco.
The emblem of the mighty SP when Palo Alto was a stop on the streamlined Daylight passenger service from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The most beautiful passenger train in the world (But I’m biased.)

Before heading to lunch on University, I sketched another of my favorite stations on the line the Streamline Moderne Palo Alto station (1941) which looks like some kind of sea going vessel about to take to the air! The station was rebuilt to match the streamlined GS locomotives that were on point for the Coast Daylights.

Final Thoughts

Caltrain’s new EMUs provided a quiet, comfortable, and quick ride from San Francisco to Palo Alto. The interior is well designed and easy to navigate with screens at both ends of the car that shows the next stop as well as upcoming stops. The seven car units have a European feel that looks more like a fast tram or articulated streetcar rather than a high sped mainline train set.

One quibble with the design is that there is only one restroom aboard the train set. This is not a minor quibble as most stations on the line do not provide opened restrooms (including Palo Alto).

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Maude’s Railcar Home

One of my favorite movies of all time is Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude (1971).

It is a great cult classic and is a very quirky and eccentric film that is now widely praised while being panned and ignored during its initial release.

One other reason I really enjoy this film is that it was filmed on location in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and Wharf.

This film provides a snapshot of what the Bay Area looked like in the early 1970s, back when I came into the world. The area has changed a lot over the last 50 years, yet some things do remain the same.

This is Oyster Point Boulevard between Eccles Avenue and Gull Drive in South San Francisco. There was once a rail siding here and this is location of Maude’s railcar home. The rails are now gone, they were taken up when the street was widened. The green hills in the background are still there but the foreground is much changed and are now blocked by biotech buildings and taller trees. (South City prides itself as the “Home of Biotech”).

A still from Harold and Maude showing Maude’s railcar home and Harold’s Jaguar-hearse on Oyster Point Boulevard between Eccles and Gull. There is still a fire hydrant at this location.

I headed behind the biotech buildings to the San Francisco Bay Trail to get a view of the green hills that were the background to the shot. The hills look much the same as they did in the early 1970s. I found a bench and started a sketch in my panoramic sketchbook.

Maude’s Pullman

The passenger car used in the filming of Harold and Maude is Western Pacific’s lounge car 653.

The car was built by Pullman in 1913. It was originally built as a sleeper car and later converted to a buffet lounge car in 1931.

In 1939 Western Pacific used the car on the “Exposition Flyer” from Oakland to Chicago. WP operated the passenger service from Salt Lake City to Oakland through the famed Feather River Canyon. The route was later replaced by the California Zephyr in 1949.

Western Pacific donated the car to the Western Railway Museum (then named the California Railway Museum) in 1966.

Universal leased the car from the museum and it was shipped by rail to the filming location: a rail siding in South San Francisco. Filming took place in 1970/71.

A piece of movie history at Rio Vista Junction.

The exterior of 653 is featured in the film but many important scenes where filmed inside the Pullman car, such as when Maude (Ruth Gordon) sings “If You Want to Sing Out” (by Cat Stevens), at the piano.

I was delighted to find that this piece of rail and film history still exists and is perverse in the Jensen Carhouse at the Western Railway Museum at Rio Vista Junction.

I was able to enter the carhouse on a tour and get a sketch from the same perspective seen in the above movie still (featured sketch). The nearest end of the car from my sketching perspective served as Maude’s entrance.

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Crockett Sketching

On a Saturday morning I headed up to Sugar Town on the Carquinez Strait.

My sketching target: the former Crockett Southern Pacific Depot with the two parallel spans of the Carquinez Bridges in the background. The depot is now home to the Crockett Historical Museum. Open Wednesday and Saturday from 10am to 3pm. Ish!

This is a busy place for rail with seven trains passing by including a California Zephyr, a Coast Starlight, a San Joaquin, Capital Corridors, and a Union Pacific freight during my two hours visit.

Coast Starlight No. 11 passes by the C & H Factory to its final destination of Los Angeles’ Union Station. The train was running a little late. Shocker!

My sketching goal was to render the scene in a continuous line sketch. This means you never lift your pen for the entire sketch. No pencil, no erasing, no going back, this is truly sketching without a net!

Eastbound California Zephyr Number 6 passing the former SP Depot at 8:56 AM without stopping. Final destination: Chicago.

I set up my sketching chair across the street from the depot just at the entrance to the company that made Crockett a company town, the C & H (California & Hawaii) sugar factory. For my sketch I used my TWSBI Eco fountain pen.

Nothing like starting the weekend with a field sketch!

Continuous line sketching can be challenging and I lifted my pen off the page once or twice (to photograph Zephyr Number 6) but I restarted where I left off. So my sketch is really a broken continuous line sketch.

In the end I like the imperfect lines of the sketch. This technique is a great way to loosen up your line work and in the end I am pleased with the result. It may not be the most accurate form of sketching but it sure has a lot of soul!

I added some wet on wet washes and paint splatter, which looseness, matches the line work.

When the museum finally opened at 10:25, I was drawn to the large 460 pound taxidermy sturgeon in a glass case. So I added it to the right side of the spread.

Main Street Crockett with Toot’s bar and the new span of the 2003 Carquinez Bridge towering over the town.

The trains never stop rolling through Crockett. This is a Sacramento-bound Capital Corridor train passing the sugar factory.
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The Red Buildings of Tuolumne County

There are three prominent red buildings I wanted to sketch in Tuolumne County in the towns of Sonora and Jamestown.

My first stop was Jamestown and Railtown 1897 State Historic Park.

The State Park includes the freight depot and the roundhouse and turntable of the Sierra Railroad. Housed inside the roundhouse are four of the railroad’s steam locomotives.

One or two of the locomotives are still active and operate on weekends in the summer months. None is more famous than Sierra No. 3.

Three of my favorite No. 3 films are: High Noon, Man of the West, and Unforgiven.

After sketching the roundhouse, I sketched the freight depot, which is now the visitors center and gift shop. This building was featured at the beginning of Anthony Mann’s Man of the West (1958). This is one of Gary Cooper’s last westerns and the last featuring Sierra No. 3 in a Cooper film. Their most famous film was the classic High Noon (although they never appeared in the same scene).

The freight depot. The passenger depot burned down on Thanksgiving Day 1978.

A few days later, I wanted to sketch one of the most photographed churches in the entire Gold Country, which is to be found in the town of Sonora.

This is St. James’ Episcopal Church (1859) also known as The Red Church. The church is build of redwood in a Carpenter Gothic style.

Getting a good sketching perspective was tough because number one, it was raining outside and I needed to do a car sketch yet I couldn’t find parking with an unobstructed view of the church looking up Highway 49. So I found a great perspective from the second story of the parking structure, looking down on the church (featured sketch).

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Coulterville and Whistling Billy

On my Spring Break Gold Country sketch list was an eight ton wood burning narrow gauge steam locomotive that was shipped around the Horn and delivered to Coulterville in 1887.

The locomotive operated on a four mile line hauling car loads of gold quartz ore from the Mary Harrison Mine just south of Coulterville to a stamp mill. Billy was abandoned in 1904 but was later refurbished and put on static display in the 1930s, where it remains today.

This is the pride and joy of Coulterville. Whistling Billy is displayed across Highway 49 from the Hotel Jeffery under the shade of the town’s hanging tree.

The Hotel Jeffery. While the building still stands the business is closed. Notable lodgers include: President Theodore Roosevelt (on his way to tour Yosemite), John Muir, and Mark Twain. Like most historic hotels in the Gold Country, this one is supposedly haunted.
Whistling Billy in beautiful Gold Country Spring sunshine.

I did two sketches of the diminutive locomotive each featuring the hanging tree.

Sketch number one.
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March 25, 1932

Today would have been my dad’s 93rd birthday.

He left us almost 10 years ago. I chose to sketch one of my favorite objects I have: his Motorman’s hat.

On a recent visit to the Western Railway Museum, where my dad was a volunteer motorman, I bought a copy of a dvd about the museum called “Ride Through History”.

The dvd is narrated by rail enthusiast and Bay Area Radio Hall of Famer Fred Krock and follows Peninsular Railway No. 52 as it rides around the museum and on to the former Sacramento Northern tracks.

Car 52 rides out to the end of the line at Bird’s Landing Road (about six miles) and then changes ends to head back to the museum.

As the car heads back, there is an over the shoulder shot of the motorman and the rails ahead that reach out to the horizon. The man in the foreground is my dad!

There is a special feeling of joy and sadness upon seeing my father doing something he loved but also the finality of his passing.

A photo I took of my dad, the streetcar motorman.

In remembrance, I sketched his hat and a still from the dvd.

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The Conversation

With the news of the passing of actor Gene Hackman, I thought I would sketch some locations from the film where he played one of his favorite roles: Harry Caul in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974).

The majority of the film was filmed on location in San Francisco. The conversation of the title takes place in Union Square.

The plot revolves around a surveillance expert (Hackman), who is hired to record a conversation between a man and a woman in busy Union Square. We later learn his eyes and ears have been deceiving him. No spoiler alert here, see the film for yourself!

I took the N Judah downtown and got off at the Powell Street Station. I walked past the lengthy cable car queue on Powell and headed towards Union Square.

The statue of Nike is the center point of Union Square.

I found a corner of the square to sketch the focal point: the Dewey Monument, which is topped by the Greek goddess Nike, the Goddess of Victory, commemorating Admiral Dewey’s victory at the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines.

In the background of the sketch (featured sketch) is the former City of Paris department store (now Neiman Marcus), which features at the beginning of the film.

At the time of filming in 1972-73, Neiman Marcus was the City of Paris department store. Harry Caul’s surveillance van was parked where the police car is.

Another San Francisco location that is featured in The Conversation is the Embarcadero One complex. The site was developed in 1971 and was brand new when filming began. The complex is the location of Hackman’s client, the President, portrayed by Robert Duval. His assistant is played by a young Harrison Ford.

The walkway leading to Embarcadero One was featured twice as Hackman’s character goes to see the Director. The sculpture, Two Columns With Wedge (1971) was only a few years old when filming took place here. The now closed cinema in front of the sculpture was not there at the time of filming.
A field sketch of one of the iconic spiral staircases of Embarcadero Center. One of these staircases was featured prominently in The Conversation.
After being paid by the President, Hackman walks right to left in front of One Maritime Plaza, which is across the street from One Embarcadero Center. The location looks much the same as it did in the early 1970s.

Walking in the footsteps that the actor Gene Hackman took in one of his seminal lead roles, is my way of honoring a talented performer that had recently left us as well as creating a fitting sketcher’s eulogy.