|
known in the railroad
preservation community, Carter Car relics are in fact
a great rarity and there are many missing links (and pins
(and puns?)) in
the story of the evolution of the design and technology of
Carter rolling
stock.
If you want to know what all the excitement is about, pay a
visit to the
California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento and take a
look at the
magnificent restored Carter built "Monterey and Salinas
Valley" coach
there or visit Ardenwood Historic Farm in Fremont where
Carter coaches
and freight cars are under restoration and operation on a
re-creation of the
SPCRR's Centerville branchline.
On Sept 22, I and Samuel Knight Chapter Members Lora
Change, Nate
Shugars, Randy Hees and Colin Busby were taken on a boat
tour hosted by
the Port of Oakland to inspect sites to be impacted by the
Channel
widening. (Colin, it developed, is working on the channel project for the
Port, suggested that the Chapter be consulted in the first
place and selected
the maps we were sent) Also on board were representatives
of various
Oakland heritage groups, engineering firms, the Army Corps
of Engineers,
and Caltrans. We were thus able to gather quite a bit of
information on
who has jurisdiction of the site and possible techniques of
detecting iron
artifacts buried in mud.
The jetties built by the Chinese are impressively
engineered structures
visible only at low tide, smoothly faced in shaped stone
dry wall, nearly
two miles long and still dead level in spite of having been
built over marsh
land and muddy bay floor 120 years ago. After cruising the
Oakland
Harbor and viewing the remains of various railroad ferry
docks and other
structures, we paused for lunch just off the site of the
South Pacific Coast's
1884 Ferry Terminal, ninety-five years after its fiery
demise.
A navigation "dolphin" (a tripod of piles, this one with a
red light) appears
to mark the outer margin of the Terminal wharf. Although
nothing was
visible in the murky waters of the Bay, the navigation
chart indicates a
maze of underwater obstructions extending toward the shore,
approximately reflecting the footprint of the 1884
Terminal. This site is not
going to be disturbed by the Oakland Harbor Channel
deepening project.
The site should be immediately designated as a significant
historic
archæological site and an archæological survey
and artifact recovery plan
should be developed. We have formally notified the US Navy,
still
responsible for the site, that they some significant
archæology to include in
their final Environmental Impact Statement before they turn
the old Naval
Air Station over to the Alameda Reuse and Redevelopment
Authority. The
Samuel Knight Chapter has its first IA site designation
project. All
members are hereby invited to stick their oar in!
The story of the South Pacific Coast RR and of the
Carter Car Builders has been
researched in wonderful depth by historian Bruce MacGregor
and his colleagues in
the Society for the Preservation of Carter Railroad
Resources (another SPCRR!).
The illustrations for this article are from Bruce's "South
Pacific Coast" and
"South Pacific Coast Centennial." Additional news items,
photos and maps from
Randy Hees of the SPCRR and Kyle Wyatt of the Nevada State
Railroad Museum
are helping to fill in the story of the fire aftermath.
Work and consultation with the
SPCRR folks (active participants in the founding of the
Samuel Knight Chapter)
have been the foundation of this preliminary investigation
into the final fate of the
Alameda Point Terminal. Thanks to my study with them, I was
prepared see the
significance of the slight difference in the maps which
luck, Colin Busby, and the
Port of Oakland sent my way.
|
|
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
