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40 years of North American photography


Johann Marsbar
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13 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

Silly question but how do they arrange the cables on the flat crossing?

 

The cables pass over/under each other.

The grip man on the Powell line has to release and coast over the top.

https://www.streetcar.org/wheels-motion/cable-cars-work/#:~:text=The California Street cars were,goes in the other direction.

Edited by newbryford
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After taking a ride on the Flyer trolleybus to Union St and back, it was then time for a Boat trip to Fishermans Wharf and back.......

 

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...which provided a handy mobile platform to take photos of passing trams, such as Melbourne W2  # 496 of 1928 which had been put out in normal service on the E line......

 

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Not quite the usual Tower associated with Blackpool trams, but #233 is seen after unloading its passengers back at the event base.......

 

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The St Louis liveried PCC, #1050,  also put in an appearance on the F line.....

 

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I then managed to get a ride on the Marmon-Herrington trolleybus out to Union St, seen here at the terminus in the company of one of the more usual New Flyer vehicles.....

 

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By the time I got back Downtown, the replacement vehicle for the failed Muni #1 had turned up - which turned out to be their other Blackpool Boat car - #228........

 

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...and my final view at the Festival on the Saturday was the Mack bus returning from a trip, passing another GM "New Look" vehicle that was privately owned and had just turned up for the afternoon. I think that is the one from the Pacific Bus Museum at Fremont, which I saw there back in 2016...

 

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After a quick walk to the California St cable car terminal to see the car that was making its first runs since 1942.........

 

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...I boarded a route 6 trolleybus up to Haight to visit a rather crowded Magnolia pub for the rest of the afternoon. They had 3 cask conditioned beers on handpump, one of which was called "Cucumber Squeeze IPA".  I did ask for a sample taste of it and it was as bad as it sounded, so I stuck to their 4.9% Ruby Mild instead!

 

By the time I had eaten there, I just returned to the Caltrain station and caught the 20.07 San Jose service back to Belmont, though we had yet another "operational Incident" on the way. I think they just missed a car at Broadway  station when someone drove round the gates, but, in the event, we were only delayed by about 10 mins.

 

The Festival seemed to be going well and the organising Market Street Railway Enthusiasts Group seemed happy with it, if you look at their blog from that evening....

https://www.streetcar.org/heritage-weekend-halftime-report/

The links on that Blog do still work as well, over 3 years on.

 

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8 hours ago, drmditch said:

Please excuse a question from an 'uninformed but interested' browser of your thread.

Why did the BART system (Bay Area Rapid Transit ?) choose a 5'6" track gauge ?

 

To be honest, I've never seen an explanation of that myself!

Whether it was to gain some extra width to the cars - as they are fairly low and wide inside the passenger saloons.......

 

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......or whether someone was ensuring that no normal railroad cars (particularly freight ones) could use the system, which is how you ended up with "Pennsylvania Gauge" on most of that States tram systems (5ft 2.5in).

Of course, there could have been some people from India involved in the planning.......

 

 

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9 hours ago, drmditch said:

Please excuse a question from an 'uninformed but interested' browser of your thread.

Why did the BART system (Bay Area Rapid Transit ?) choose a 5'6" track gauge ?


To assure lateral stability of lightweight vehicles in crosswinds:

 

https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2022/news20220708-2

Edited by pH
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Another early morning bus trip on the 398 Sunday morning saw me in central SF ready for the second day of the Transit Festival, though, as it turned out, there were only minor variations to the line up of visitors/operating vehicles to that on the Saturday.   Despite it being a mild and sunny day, the bus into SF had its heating going at full blast and it managed to wate even more time standing around at stops on the way - something like 15-20 mins on a 75 min trip!   They obviously don't "do" differential running times in California like we do here.

Given the weather, and I was in SF in plenty of time before the event started, I headed off to the Mason St/Columbus Ave junction for some cable car photography.......

 

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A couple of different PCC cars were out during the day, the Toronto liveried one............

 

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...and the Market Street Railway double ended one......

 

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Up to 13.00, all F line streetcars were terminating at the Museum/Ferry Building loop which just gave the various historic special workings and the E line running from there to Fishermans Wharf.

 

The only fresh visiting vehicle was this "New Look" GM in US Bicentennial livery that appeared for a few hours.........

 

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Only one Blackpool car (228) was out that day.......

 

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...though both of their Melbourne cars were out, #496, a W2 of 1928......

 

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...and #916, an SW6 of 1946.............

 

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The Dallas Terminal liveried PCC is seen founding the corner at Pier 39......

 

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During the day, I did manage to get rides on the Mack bus, Melbourne 916 and the 1896 4-wheeler, so managed to ride on all of the interesting items apart from one of the Blackpool boats, though, rather unexpectedly, I managed to do that later in the week!

 

When the event started winding down mid-afternoon, I wandered off to find 21st Amendment Brewing on 2nd Street for something to eat & drink. The place was rather busy, though I managed to get a table, but I seemed to be the only person in the place who wasn't wearing any Metallica branded clothing!  I later found out they were performing a concert at a nearby venue that evening.

 

On the way back to the Caltrain station for the train back to Belmont, I was able to get a photo of a pair of the fairly new Siemens built LRV's, then, and still, in course of delivery to Muni from 2017 onwards......

 

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The line-up at the staion was totally F40PH-2 variants........

 

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On 18/02/2023 at 11:53, drmditch said:

Please excuse a question from an 'uninformed but interested' browser of your thread.

Why did the BART system (Bay Area Rapid Transit ?) choose a 5'6" track gauge ?

That article concurs with what I read somewhere.  The explanation to me was that in the 'white heat of technology' 1960's the thoroughly hip engineers didca computer study to fi d the most appropriate gauge and came up with 5' 6".

Jamie

Edited by jamie92208
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The Monday mornimg was spent travelling round various parts of the Muni network whith not a great deal of note seen other than the Los Angeles Transit Lines liveried PCC being out......

 

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.....and a couple of SF fire engines being parked up near the trolleybus terminus at Ocean Beach......

 

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Shortly after mid day I caught the ferry over to Oakland to spend the rest of the day in the East Bay area, passing quite a few container vessels moored at the Port of Oakland en route......

 

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...and a good view of the downtown SF skyline on the way over.....

 

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The first 30 minutes around Jack London Square in Oakland were quite busy, with 2 passenger services and a UP freight doing some switching out of the docks area.......

 

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...but it then went quiet so I headed off to find Independent Brewing - somewhere I had been on my 2016 trip - only to find they weren't open on a Monday or a Tuesday!

However, almost adjacent to their premises, I found Original Pattern Brewing, who had apparently opened sometime in 2018, so I paid a visit there instead and which turned out to be a worthy replacement for a visit to Independent Brewing.

 

Then it was back to Jack London Square for another 90 minutes or so......

 

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....before catching the free shuttle bus into the centre, where this AC Transit Van Hool A300K is seen.....

 

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A lot of the central area seemed to be undergoing a major series of roadworks - hence the "On detour" destination shown on the bus above - so I had great fun trying to find out where my service to Berkeley actually departed from - eventually finding it hidden down a sidestreet.  On arrival in Berkeley, I then had a walking tour of the town trying to find Tripple Rock Brewing, which was notable for serving (proper) 20 oz pints!   Also of note was a large enamel "Hammonds Ales" advert attached to one of the interior walls - I think they were a Bradford based brewery in the past.

The return trip to the Motel was a lot quicker than the outward. with a direct BART service to Millbrae with a Caltrain service onwards from there.

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3 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:
3 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

The Monday mornimg was spent travelling round various parts of the Muni network whith not a great deal of note seen other than the Los Angeles Transit Lines liveried PCC being out......
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That’s Glasgow Corporation colours:

 

https://collections.trolleymuseum.org/storage/images/489-wHnvIiheSDBRd8pbQTSuAB3KjuUuF9qsd9BTO3lBlxHWlG76uSuzATZTsQv3.jpg

 

(Apologies for the formatting - I can’t correct it.)

Edited by pH
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I had originally planned to do two longish trips to the north and north-east of SF by Public transport into areas that I'd never been before. In the event, the one that covered the new SMART diesel railcar service in Sonoma/Marin counties ended up being dropped as, at that time, they seemed to be having a lot of service disruptions due to striking pedestrians/trespassers on a regular basis so it was decided to substitute a day on Caltrain instead.

The remaining trip, up as far as Napa went ahead as planned, so a pre 0600 start from Belmont on Caltrain, changing to BART at Millbrae, saw me getting to El Cerrito del Norte for 07.20.

That station was obviously an important point for feeder bus services as quite a few different operators were in evidence, such as this Golden Gate Transit (Marin County) 40' Gillig from 2018.....

 

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...and this Solano Express MCI coach dating from 2017 on a route from Suisun City.......

 

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My onward bus service was run by yet another operator - Napa Valley Transit - otherwise known as VINE ( Valley Intracity Neighbourhood Express) which is actually a Transdev company - and took about an hour to get to Napa, though we were held up in a few places due to traffic congestion on the Freeways.

 

No prizes for guessing why I had chosen Napa as a destination though.........

 

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I'd actually looked at taking a trip on the wine train, not that I'm a great wine fanatic, though they were doing a craft beer train at that time on some dates which would have been of more interest to me.  The problem was getting back from there by the time the train returned to Napa, particularly given the location I was staying on the trip. They did have a dedicated travel option from the ferry terminal in Vallejo to connect with the train (a minivan of some sort), but as I didn't have a spare arm or leg, I decided to view the three scheduled departures from Napa that morning and leave it at that. I also didn't know what traction was being used on the services at that time - the FPA-4's being the obvious attraction.

In the end, I'm glad I didn't travel, given the class selection of motive power in use that day.....

 

The 3 locos shown on shed at Napa were obviously not in use, judging by the missing parts seen on them, though the middle of the 3 looked in the better condition.......

 

r19-713.jpg.d9152e73e8a9a5786b71b060ed9caa04.jpg

 

...the only serviceable loco of that type appeared to be #70 which was parked up on a siding adjacent to their passenger station, though I don't think it was in use at that time either.

 

Outside the shed was this former SP Alco RS11 of 1959......

 

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I'd still got over an hour to kill before the first train was due to depart, so took a walk to seen out likely photo spots north of the station, taking this one of a VINE El Dorado National Axcess BRT of 2016 in the process....

 

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I then returned to the station to see what turned up for the first train of the day, being totally unimpressed by it when it duly appeared..........

 

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The consist was an ex USAF 80T GE centrecab of 1952 with one dining car and an open sided coach, the whole train looking distincly "down at heel" when viewed from the outside.

 

Yer more quality power was on the next run..........

 

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...a 1958 built GP9 that was still carrying the G&W colours of its last operator, Portland & Western..........

 

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There was then a longer gap until the next train left, so I wandered back to the station area to get a photo of the Sierra Northern Railway loco that was parked up behind the FPA-4...

 

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SERA #48 is a 1961 built GP20, originally from the Santa Fe.

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How sad to see how the Napa Valley has declined.  I visited it twice in the nineties when the FPA4 were very much the only show in town hauling superbly restored ex-DRGW nee-NP coaches (the old Ski Train) all immaculate inside and out.  We took an SPV tour party on it too and the service was superb.

 

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I seem to recall there were local objections to the ALCo "pollution" and as a result they tried running them on vegetable oil or something without much success.

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Some years ago we had booked on the Nappa Valley train but when we got there they weren't running due to flooding. They hadn't notified us do it took some time to get a refund which was less than we paid due to currency commission on the credit cards.

 

Never got chance to do it again.

 

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Things didn't improve on the locomotove front when the third train of the day rolled into the Wine Train platform......

 

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...with a rather bland looking black ex NS/Southern GP38-2 of 1983 on the front.  They still seem to be running it in that condition today as well !

 

As that was it as far as trains in that line were concerned for the day, I adjourned to a local Diner for some food, being pleasantly surprised to find it was a licenced premises with a range of craft beers on tap!   That was just as well, as when I went in search of the premises of Trade Brewing in Napa they were shut for the day....

However, Stone Brewing also had a taproom in Napa, so I wandered into the centre to find that instead. Had seems to be the operative word as the place is another one that has since closed as a result of the Covid Pandemic....

 

I took a different route to get back to San Francisco to that taken in the morning and headed back to the Napa Bus Station where this 2013 El Dorado National Axess 35' CNG powered vehicle was seen.......

 

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....from where I caught a route 11 bus to Vallejo Transportation Centre for a fast ferry back to SF.  Vallejo is one of the main operating centres for Sol Trans, a bus sytem run by a rather familiar sounding company - National Express !    You can just about make out their red/blue logo on the lower panel behind the rear wheels on this 40' Gillig dating from 2011....

 

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The Ferry Terminal at Vallejo - opposite the bus station - is sufficiently civillised to have its own brewery tap based in the terminal building - Mare Island Brewing - so a visit was made there bedore catching the 15.10 ferry over to SF.  The run on the ferry took 60 minutes and the speeds attained by the craft were quite impressive.........

 

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It was quite a scenic trip as well, with quite a lot of shipping in evidence on the way......

 

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Back in SF, I did note that one of the Blackpool cars was out in service along the Embarcadero, as were three diffeent Milan Peter Witts. The service seemed to be rather erratic again, but I took up residence on the footbridge by Pier 39 for a while to get some photos, which included the Birmingham and Los Angeles Railway liveried PCC's....

 

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Wednesday was spent generally in the SF area, the first part of the morning being spent riding Caltrain as far out as Redwood City using a 1/2 Zone rail ticket.

A San Jose bound service is seen that morning approaching San Carlos under cloudless skies, with an isolated group of electrification masts being visible on the shot. They seem to be using bracket arm construction wherever possible rather than span wires for the overhead......

 

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Once back in SF, I travelled out to Ocean Beach on the MUNI Metro, where the locllised weather conditions in the SF area were highlighted as we left the sunny skies behind and ended up in foggy and cool conditions.....

 

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A few more of the new Siemens built cars were out in service that day as well.....

 

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Tram services seemed to be operating rather erratically again that morning (as demonstrated by the "Not in Service" display on the Siemens car) and the return trip from Downtown to Ocean Beach took the best part of 3 hours, about 50% longer than it should have done!

 

Back at the Ferry Building the sun was shining again as Milan Peter Witt #1895 made the turn off the Embarcadero......

 

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Rather unexpectedly, I found that Blackpool #228 was out in service between there and Fishermans Wharf running a free operation, so as I'd missed out on riding that one at the weekend. I took a trip on it....

 

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Even that was running late as it was scheduled to depart at 12.00 and actually left at 12.25......

After managing to catch it back to the Ferry Building from Fishermans Wharf, I had a walk around that area and discovered this old ferry being used as the HQ of one of the Bay cruise companies.......

 

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The ferry is the Santa Rosa, built in 1927 for Golden Gate Ferries - a NWP/SP subsidiary - and was later used in Washington State where she was convered to a single ended configuration.

 

From there I headed off to the Richmond Republic pub again for a late lunch before continuing to the Magnolia in Haight, which, as it was Wednesday, had a full complement of 5 cask conditioned beers on handpump. Not surprisingly, they still had the Cucumber IPA available, though all the others were different!

 

Early evening saw some more trips on Caltrain before heading back to the motel, with an arial view of one of the MP36PH-3C's at MIllbrae....

 

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The last full day of the trip used a Zone 2/3/4 ticket on Caltrain which covered the section of line between Millbrae and San Jose, several rides being taken in the morning peak between 06.00 and 09.30.

There are still a few historic station buildings preserved along the Caltrain route, with this example at Menlo Park dating from 1867, although the ornementation was apparently added in the 1890's......

 

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The most impressive example is the one at Palo Alto which was built in the Streamline Moderne style by the SP in 1940/41..........

 

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Palo Alto is a very busy station due to its location near Stanford University with a large number of bus services calling there.

 

The station at San Jose (Diridon) dates from 1935 and is in Italian Rennaisance Revival style..........

 

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The adjacent bus station is served by a number of bus routes, including the local VTA (Valley Transportation Authority), two of their GIllig built hybrid vehicles of 2017/18 being seen here.....

 

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I spent a couple of hours in central San Jose photographing the VTA Light Rail, a new livery ("Solutions that move you") being applied to some of their vehicles since my 2016 visit......

 

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.....as well as photographing the local bus fleet, such as this earlier Gillig hybrid from 2010.......

 

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I can't say I've ever seen an area of seating in a park which is designed to look like a horse tram either...........

 

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As there are only 2 single seats in it, the thing may well be designed as a childrens play area rather than public seating.

 

Just after 12.00 I returned on the train to Palo Alto and spent nearly a couple of hours there, mainly photographing the variety of bus services operating past the station, such as this VTA NFI XDE60 artic......

 

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...and the Dumbarton Express route - seemingly operated by AC Transit - that crosses the Dumbarton Bridge over to the East Bay at Union City BART station......

 

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A short walk into the centre from the station found this Palo Alto FD engine parked up at the roadside....

 

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Several stations on the SF-San Jose line retain reminders of the original operators, such as this at Palo Alto......

 

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From Palo Alto I headed north to Burlingame for a visit to Steelhead Brewing, located across the road from the station.

There was a little more evidence of the electrification works at that station.....

 

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.....and it retains its 1894 Spanish Mission style station building......

 

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Looking south from the platform, more electrification works can be seen, again mainly bracket arm style construction........

 

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From Burlingame I headed back south , alighting at Santa Clara for just under 30 mins, which retains its 1863 built wooden station building.....

 

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Apparently it contains a rail museum and two large model railway layouts, but wasn't open the day I was there.   The adjacent signal tower is also preserved as part of the museum......

 

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There wasn't a lot of evidence of electrification there, but as well as passing Caltrain services, you also see the peak-hour Altamont Commuter Express operations into San Jose passing through...

 

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Another ACE train was sitting at San Jose when I arrived there, being worked by one of their F40PH-3C locos.....

 

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I did think of trying to work out a way of taking a trip on ACE but the nature of their operations makes it quite difficult without a car.  It is possible to get off part way along the route to Stockton (Pleasanton) where you can catch a bus to connect with one of the BART lines, or you can travel all the way to Stockton and then get Amtrak from there (after a 2 hour gap) to Oakland to connect with BART.  They use a different station to Amtrak in Stockton, and on looking at various online reports on the nature of the Stockton area, it looks a place to avoid, so I didn't bother....

 

The rest of the day was spent covering the evening Caltrain peak timetable, though I did stop off at Palo Alto again, where thos electric bus is operated (by First Group...) on Stanford University shuttle runs.......

 

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As for the last day in San Francisco, I didn't actually do a great deal and just spent some time linesiding in the Belmont and Millbrae areas...

 

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....before heading back to the Airport to check that my flight was running as it should, this being a time when BA were cancelling quite a few flights due to staff shortages. I hadn't received any Text message on my phone to tell me otherwise (when the phone decided to start working over there, that is....) and thankfully everything went as planned for the trip home.

As a contrast to the 747 on the outward trip, the return was operated by an A380, my first flight on that aircraft type.   I wasn't actually that impressed with it TBH, particularly when it resulted in me having to see a doctor once I was home due to a neck problem, seemingly obtained whilst attempting to sleep overnight in the seat on the plane!

 

At that time I was waiting for an operation at the hospital so I didn't know when I would be called in for that to take place, the pre-op taking place the week after I returned from SF.  When it got round to late December and I had heard nothing, I decided to go ahead and book another US trip for the coming March - one based in Newark and covering NJT again, including a number of locations I hadn't been to before.  The fight and hotel were booked, but as the appointed date approached, it was rather obvious that other things going on in the World (something called Covid..) were likely to throw a spanner in the works, so I kept monitoring the situation, particularly that in the US, and at the start of the week that I was due to fly out on the coming Thursday, I reluctantly decided to pull the plug on the whole thing.   On reflection, I might actually have been able to do the trip OK, though I would have been back at LHR at the start of the first Lockdown on Monday 23rd March, but I certainly didn't want to get stuck anywhere.  I got most of the hotel money back and thought I'd lost the air fare as well, though I seem to have some credit with United Airlines, assuming I use it before the end of this year - not that they told me about that, I only found out when I first looked at Expedia again last year after a gap of 2 years!

 

As it currently stands, that concludes my North American trips for the time being.    I've got nothing planned at the moment for the coming year, though I may well attempt something just so I can get back to normallity.  I've got several trips booked for elsewhere so far, including 9 flights, but none of those actually leave the British Isles!

 

I hope you have found this thread to be of some interest and it may get reactivated again as and when I head west across the Atlantic .......

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Thanks very much for the thread  Johann.  I have thoroughly enjoyed it.  I hope that you do get back over and provide more instalments.  My UK thread should be updated fairly soon and you never know I might get back across the pond.  Some friends in Chicago have offered me accommodation  for the start and finish of a trip so you never know.

 

Jamie

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Really enjoyed all your travels. Look forward to your future trips.

 

We finally made it back over Christmas to California with direct flights to LAX which turned out to be a good move with most of the USA in bad weather and departing two days before SoCal was hit by big storms with the underpass at Los Angeles Union station being flooded and Amtrak cancelling trains to the north. We also watched videos of flooding in Mission Valley in San Diego where we had also been. We count ourselves very lucky with what we acheived.

No trips planned over there for this year but fingers crossed for the NMRA convention for next year in Long Beach and maybe back to Portland OR after  a hiatus of regular visits where we hope to meet up again  with the brother of a departed Rmwebber.

 

Beer is so much dearer in the USA now . My other half had a credit card staetment showing that just 4 flights (around a total of four pints) came to £58 in a brewpub next to Carslbad station. We will have to learn to drink less in future.

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1 hour ago, roundhouse said:

Beer is o much dearer in the USA now . My other half had a credit card staetment showing that just 4 flights (around a total of four pints) came to £58 in a brewpub next to Carslbad station. We will have to learn to drink less in future.

How much... ?!   😛

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Many thanks for the comments about the thread - I will add to it as and when I do any more trips over there.

 

I do have rather a lot of photos from other places abroad, the first ones dating from 1976, so might get round to starting another thread for those, particularly the European ones.....

 

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...and then there are the other more far-flung places that do have North American built stock or influences.......

 

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...though the latter one also falls into the "Tri-ang Transcontinental" field as well!

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