Southern Pacific Railroad

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Gates of Heaven, Santa Clara County

On film critic Roger Ebert’s list of the Ten Greatest Films of All Time, only one film is an American documentary (two out of ten films are documentaries).

This is the Errol Morris 1978 documentary Gates of Heaven. The film is about two California pet cemeteries, one in the Napa Valley and the other in Los Altos.

The film opens in Los Altos at Highway 280 and Foothill (I grew up two highway exits away). This is the site of the Foothill Pet Cemetery and Morris spends time interviewing the founder Floyd “Mac” McClure and other investors in the pet cemetery.

Some of the clients of the cemetery are also interviewed, including the woman with the “singing” pup and for comic relief, the manager of an animal rendering plant.

Mac has a lot of passion for his dream of opening a pet cemetery, he puts love above profit but one feels he isn’t the best businessman. The owner of the land, a Mr. Dutton, decides to sell the land to a real-estate developer and the pets, all 450, have to be exhumed and reburied in the another pet cemetery (Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park in Napa Valley).

The second part of the film interviews the Harberts family which runs the Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park. But not before one of the best monologues in documentary history from a Los Altos elderly neighbor, Florence Rasmussen, who lives across the street from the cemetery.

The documentary was filmed in the summer of 1977 and I was in search of the location of the cemetery on a rainy late morning.

Looking at maps, I noticed a trail (Hammond-Snyder Loop Trail) up to a hill that would give me a view of area to the south of Highway 280 and east of Foothill.

I set off on the muddy trail past a red-tail hawk perched in an oak. There was a light drizzle. In about five minutes I found myself on a small hill partially fenced in with an interpretative sign.

Looking to the north I knew I was standing at the cameras location from the panning shot at the beginning of Gates of Heaven.

A screen capture of the first panning shot in the film. The green water tanks are still there. The bridge in the foreground right is Cristo Rey Drive over the Southern Pacific Permanente Cement Plant branch line. In the background is Highway 280.
This screen capture, from the same panning shot as above, comes to rest here: the location of the Foothill Pet Cemetery between Cristo Rey Drive and Highway 280.
Here is the same view of the cemetery today. The distance fades into drizzling skies. There are more houses and trees than there were in 1977. The roads are very much the same as 47 years ago.

I pulled my panoramic journal out of my pack and quickly began a pen brush sketch of the scene before me, my lines blurred and smudged in the drizzle. These “happy accidents” became part of the sketch.

Parts of the scene were still recognizable: the green waters tanks, the railroad, the Foothill Blvd entrance and exit ramps, Cristo Rey, and Highway 280.

Where the pet cemetery was located is now a housing development and the trees now seem much taller and more plentiful than when the panning shot was filmed here almost 47 years ago.

Do the residents of Serra Knoll Estates know their houses are built on the site of a pet cemetery?!
Oddly enough there is a Catholic Cemetery called “Gate of Heaven” just down the road from the former Foothill Pet Cemetery. Did Morris get the idea for his film’s title here? Maybe only he really knows.
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Schellville

Schellville is not really a town, just an intersection of a two lane highway and a country road in incorporated Sonoma County. But this is a very important railroad junction.

This is the last bastion of the once great Northwestern Pacific Railroad (NWP).

Schellville was an important rail junction on the NWP and there is a two mile rail yard south of the former train station.

The Schellville Depot has seen better days, just like the rest of the former Northwestern Pacific system. Now it is used for storage.

This was NWP’s only outlet to the greater Southern Pacific rail network. All passenger and freight traffic from Eureka in Humboldt County south to Willits, Santa Rosa, Petaluma and San Rafael in Marin County, had to pass through Schellville.

At one point, post World War II, 11,000 cars a month passed through the junction at Schellville. Many cars went on, under Southern Pacific steam, to the division point at Roseville.

Over the years, declining passenger and freight service, landslides, and the severe winter floods of 1964, sent NWP on a downward decline. The railroad was operated by Southern Pacific and once SP merged with Union Pacific in the mid-1990s, NWP changed hands many times, holding on to it’s diminished existence.

It seemed that the entire fleet of four locomotives where fenced in near the station. This motley collection were painted in the livery of other railroads.

NWP No. 1501 painted in the Southern Pacific “bloody nose” livery.

From the Y track at the station I headed north along the line, vineyards flanking either side of the rusted rails. I crossed a short trestle and before me stood a railroad graveyard, a mothballed fleet of NWP and SP diesels and rolling stock.

The mothball fleet is mainly Southern Pacific locomotives and a mix other other rolling stock. The locomotive on point is Northwestern Pacific EMD GP 9 No. 1922, faded and being returned to nature.
At the end of the diesels is Southern Pacific caboose 1971. The locomotive coupled to the caboose is the former Bessemer and Lake Erie F7 numbers 718 A and 716 B.

While these locomotives had seen better days I was surprised to see a Southern Pacific Steam Locomotive on a siding across 8th Street.

At first I couldn’t believe my eyes. Could this be one of a handful of operable SP steam locomotives? I could barely make out the road number.

It was P-8 Class No. 2572 a 4-6-2 “Pacific” type built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1921.

2472 was retired in 1957 and donated to the city of San Mateo and put on public display at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds.

In 1976 a group decided to restore the SP workhorse to working order. The group, the Golden Gate Railroad Museum, had 2472 ready for Railfair 91 in Sacramento which feature another Southern Pacific legend, 4449.

For many years 2472 operated steam excursions in Niles Canyon but was moved to Schellville on March 1, 2020.

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NWP Black Point Bridge

An important bridge that kept Northwestern Pacific Railroad connected with the mainline rail network is the Black Point Bridge.

The 50 foot rail bridge at Black Point is a steel swinging truss bridge that turns perpendicular to the rail line to allow boat traffic on the Petaluma River to pass downstream to San Pablo Bay.

In the days of heavier rail traffic, the bridge was aligned with the railroad but now with fewer freight traffic, the bridge is open to allow river traffic to pass.

The Black Point Bridge, which spans the Petaluma River which is the boundary between Marin and Sonoma Counties, was built in 1911 and then rebuilt in 2011.

The Highway 37 bridge over the Petaluma River. The Black Point Bridge is just downstream from here.

Atop the bride is the Operator’s House where the bridge operator lived. He was in charge of opening and closing the bridge in the days when all the freight north to Eureka, had to cross this vital span to take freight to the rail junction at Schellville and beyond to the wider rail system. The bridge is now operated remotely.

On either side of the steel span, a wooden trestle reaches out into the river.

The marina at Port Sonoma has seen better days. The boat slips are now empty and the reeds are slowly taking over.

I parked in the overgrown parking lot, walked past the abandoned marina, and then headed down the river trail to find a good vantage point to sketch the bridge.

I parked my sketching chair near the outlet of the marina, took a sip of joe, and started to sketch (featured sketch).

A sketcher’s view and beautiful weather for a morning sketch.
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NWP Depot: Petaluma

One of the nicest Northeastern Pacific rail depots still in existence, is to be found in the Sonoma County city of Petaluma.

This 1914 depot is designed in the Mission Revival style by Southern Pacific Railroad architect, D. J. Patterson. The passenger station originally cost $7,000 to build. The new station replaced the 1871 wooden stations. Patterson also designed the Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio station. He also designed the Willits Station for the Northwestern Pacific, north of Petaluma.

This was a busy station with 14 passenger trains stopping at Petaluma daily. The construction of the Golden Gate Bridge cut into the passenger numbers and the last passenger train departed from this station in 1958.

That was until almost 60 years later in June 29, 2017 that a passenger train stopped In Petaluma.

The spot now housed the Petaluma Visitor’s Center but passenger service still lives in the form of SMART trains that travel from Santa Rosa to the ferry terminal at Larkspur.

A southbound SMART train pulls into the Downtown Petaluma station.
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Southern Pacific Cab Forward No. 4294

The last steam locomotive that Southern Pacific ever purchased is on display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. And she’s massive!

This is the only one of the 256 cab-forwards that still exist. The 4-8-8-2 locomotive was turned around so the cab was in front and the exhaust was behind the cab and crew. The natural habitat of the AC-12 Class No. 4294 was over Donner Summit. And because of the heavy snowfall in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, 37 miles of the line was covered in snow sheds to keep snow off the tracks. This innovative design prevented the crew from smoke exhaust induced asphyxiation.

This last of the cab-forwards was such an engineering marvel that it was designated a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1981. It was the first steam locomotive to be added to the list. Of the 300 landmarks in existence, only seven are steam locomotives, including Union Pacific’s Big Boy No. 4023 and Norfolk and Western J-Class No. 611 (more about 611 in a later post).

This locomotive is massive and the largest and most powerful locomotive in the museum’s collection. The locomotive and tender are 123 feet and 8 inches long and the total weight of this Beast of the Sierras is 1,051,200 pounds (525 tons). One of the docents I talked to was old enough to see a cab-forward in action as a child and he told me that the locomotive scared him and the ground shook when it passed by.

On my visit to the California State Railroad Museum, high on my sketching list was this massive cab-forward. There was only so many perspective to sketch 4294, I tried sketching from above but I couldn’t see the entire locomotive and tender from the third floor gallery so I took a seat under the massive glass Southern Pacific logo and sketched 4294’s front and left side. My wide panoramic journal was perfect for this.

Drawing the complicated running gear was a challenge so I used along of shorthand and used my sketcher’s license!
Looking down the length of 4294 to where I sketched this Beast of the Sierras. I sat on the bench under the SP logo that was once at the Port of Oakland.
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The Ferryboat Eureka

One of the ships docked at the Hyde Street Pier is the former Northwestern Pacific ferry boat Eureka.

In the era before bridges, (the Bay and Golden Gate), the only way to get from San Francisco to Marin or Oakland by rail, was by rail ferry.

The passenger cars would be boarded on the ferry and then, well, ferried, across the Golden Gate to Sausalito or Tiburon where they would be unloaded and continue north on the rails of Northwestern Pacific.

The ferry and the Hyde Street Pier was actually considered part of Highway 101.

The boat was built in 1890 in Tiburon by San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad Company and was originally named the Ukiah, which was as far north as the line reached. The Eureka is a double-ended, wooden hulled ferry-boat that was originally built to hold train cars. Two standard-gauge tracks where built into the main deck.

This 277 foot, 2,564 tonnage boat is the largest wooden-hulled boat afloat in the world.

A pen brush field sketch of the Eureka, displaying the Northwestern Pacific circular logo, and the modern San Francisco skyline.

The Ukiah was initially in service to ferry people from San Francisco to Tiburon during the day and then carry freight cars during the night. In 1907 the Northwestern Pacific Railroad took ownership of the Ukiah and it was routed to the Marin port of Sausalito.

During World War I, the ferry was rebuilt and the refurbished ferry was renamed the Eureka, in honor to the northernmost station on the Northwestern Pacific Railroad.

The Eureka from the bow of the Balclutha and Coit Tower echoing the steam stack of the Eureka.

The ferry was later used to ferry automobiles on her main deck and had a capacity of 2, 300 passengers and 120 cars. At this time, the Eureka was the largest and fastest double-ended passenger ferry in existence and because of this, the Eureka was called up for the busiest commuters times from Sausalito to San Francisco. Hyde Street pier was the primary auto terminal to connect San Francisco to points north and east.

When the Golden Gate Bridge was completed in 1937, ferry service passengers dried up and Northwestern Pacific abandoned all ferry service in 1941.

The Eureka found a new life in the 1950s with a new owner, the mighty Southern Pacific. The Eureka now linked passengers on SP’s overland service from Oakland to San Francisco.

Today the Eureka is docked with the C. A. Thayer (foreground), the Eppleton Hall, and the Balclutha (background).
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CP Depot and an HO F7 Writ Large

I got to the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento a little early so I walked over to sketch the replica of the Central Pacific passenger depot. (The former stations had burned down.)

This station is at ground zero from where Central Pacific started the Transcontinental Railroad. Mile Marker 0 was a hundred feet behind me as I sketched.

I walked around the depot and looked at two amazing Santa Fe steam locomotives that where sitting on sidings in static display. Both of them had come from New Mexico and both where not in great shape, needing some cosmetic restoration.

Santa Fe No. 2925 is a 4-8-4 passenger locomotive. This is one of the heaviest 4-8-4 Northerns ever built. Today only five of the 30 produced survive.
SP No. 2467 is a 4-6-2 Pacific type build in 1921. She pulled passenger trains and was retired in 1956. The locomotive was restored to working order in the 1990s and is still operational.

Once in the museum, one locomotive on my sketch list was an EMD diesel-electric F7 painted in the iconic Santa Fe Warbonnet livery.

When I was a child my dad used to take me to the tracks to see passing passenger trains. And one Christmas he got me my first HO train and it was a smaller version of the classic Santa Fe passenger locomotive.

This paint scheme is so famous that if you Google EMD F7, a picture of the Warbonnet F7 comes up.

The iconic Santa Fe units where on point of the 2,227 mile route from Chicago to Los Angeles called the Super Chief. This was one of the first all streamlined diesel cross country route.

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Where the Rails End

Today the only way to get from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz is to drive over Highway 17. You can no longer take a passenger train. The last train ran in 1940.

On the other side of the Santa Cruz Mountains, you can board a train at the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk and it will take you 6.8 miles north into the mountains to the town of Felton.

Detraining here you follow the line past the train shed and machine shop of the Roaring Camp and Big Trees Railroad and the old passenger and freight depot and then you cross Graham Hill Road and walk north on the rails toward Zayante, using the rusty rails as a guide.

The line begins to parallel Zayante Creek. The road builders used the watersheds of the Santa Cruz Mountains as a route to work up and down the summit. A good part of the Santa Cruz to Felton route parallels Santa Cruz County’s largest river, the San Lorenzo.

After a few miles you eventually come to a siding, this is the former stop of Eccles near Olympia Station Road. This was a flag stop as far back as 1901. There was once a passenger shelter (1913) and a freight platform.

The main line and siding at Eccles. The 310 foot siding was probably used to store lumber cars.

The station sign remained in place until 1942, when the station was decommissioned following the abandonment of the the railroad.

After World War II, passenger service was not resumed and the station shelter was torn down. The Eccles sign was saved and was on display at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History in downtown Santa Cruz.

Here’s where the Eccles station sign used to be at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. It’s gone, like the rails that once reached over the Santa Cruz Mountains.

One a recent visit to the museum the sign was no longer on display.

I continued north as the siding rejoined the mainline. And after about a five minute walk, the tracks end without much ceremony. There is no bumper stop to mark the end. And one tail is longer than it’s mate, 4 feet and 8 1/2 inches away.

This is the end of the line and as far north as the tracks go.

The end of the tracks and the end of an era.

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Tunnel No. 8

Of all the tunnels on the former South Pacific Coast Railroad there is only one that is still in use for it’s intended purpose. That is Tunnel No. 8, the Mission Hill Tunnel.

This tunnel takes the line through Mission Hill because the town of Santa Cruz did not want the railroad to run through downtown. So they had to bore through the sandstone of Mission Hill. This meant the tunnel was prone to caving in so it was reinforced with internal redwood beams.

The tunnel is built under the Mission Santa Cruz Cemetery and in the early days, steam locomotives passing though would rattle and shake up the earth and occasionally a bone or two would fall onto the line leaving a macabre find for rail crews.

In 1985 the Southern Pacific line was purchased by Norman Clark, owner of the Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad, and passenger service was revived from Felton to Santa Cruz, a round trip of 16 miles.

The Big Trees & Pacific coming off of Chestnut Street in Santa Cruz on it’s return to Felton. The railroad has some of the most street running rail of any tourist railway. The train is pulling into the right of way heading towards Tunnel No. 8.
The train disappearing into Tunnel No. 8 on its way to Felton.
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Shady Gulch Trestle

Just up the creek from my cabin is one of the remaining wooden trestles on the former South Pacific Coast Railroad (in 1887 the railroad became Southern Pacific). This is the Shady Gulch Trestle.

Not only does this trestle still exist but is still used for rail service on the Big Trees and Pacific Railway.

Shady Gulch Trestle with the Highway 9 concrete bridge (1930) in the foreground. The dirt road to the right is the former Eben Bennett toll road. The concrete highway bridge replaced the toll road.

The original trestle was built in 1875 to span Shady Gulch. At the time, the line was built for the narrow gauge South Pacific Coast Railroad. When Southern Pacific acquired the line they rebuilt the trestle in 1905 to accommodate standard gauge.

The trestle of today very much looks like the original narrow gauge trestle of the late 19th century, sans graffiti of course.

The afternoon Felton-bound Big Trees and Pacific crossing the Shady Gulch Trestle. This tourist train tends to stop traffic on Highway 9.

My father spend his childhood summers in the cabin in the 1930, 40s, and 50s. He would tell me of the time a freight would be climbing the grade on the trestle on their way to Felton on a foggy summer’s morning. The wet track would cause the locomotive’s driving wheels to slip. And after many slips and the hyperbolic “chuff-chuff-chuff” of the stream exhaust, the train would back down the grade, sanding the track as they reversed. The freight would make another attempt, this time slowly with the sanded rails helping the drivers grip the steel. And off they went to Felton.

There is a single one car pull off on the north side of the highway bridge. I made three attempts to sketch the trestle but was foiled by a camper van that was camped out in the spot.

Was this guy going to spend the night here? On my third attempt of the day, in late afternoon, the van was finally gone and I was able to park, set up my sketching chair, and start my sketch of the trestle.

I timed my sketching time with the Felton bound afternoon Big Trees and Pacific train.