Great video share. Moved to Martinez in 1980 at 10 years Old and spent a lot of time watching trains on the stretch behind the east side of tunnel #1 to the Morello bridge. Usually Sat for hours on the top of that first cut through in the sandstone about a 1/4 mile from the tunnel. I Sat there with a railroad spike chipping away at the sandstone pretending it was a rock quarry and the trains would stop and load my daily excavation. You tube is great because out of simple curiosity seeing if there was any footage ever captured in the Cab Ride mode and on here about this section of Track ,,,,,,,BINGO! Here it is! Also watched the whole 2 hour version too. Thanks for filming this and posting it.
That was awesome. Thanks for the ride. The 2 train meet was interesting. Cool to think of controlling tons behind you. Stretch out train, knowing when to notch up or down. Very informative. Thanks Steve.
Really enjoy your videos Steve. I went to Fresno on a temporary assignment in "94 as a conductor and I'll never forget getting on my first Westbound at Fresno, temperature 100 degrees plus and the air conditioner barely able to keep the cab cool. When we got to tunnel three the engineer reached down and shut the air off and opened the windows. I asked him what the hell he was doing and he said, just wait till we come out of the tunnel. Sure enough, it was probably 25 degrees cooler on the bay side. Crazy, had to carry a heavy shirt or light jacket even though it was cooking in Fresno cause you would need it in the Bay area. Great times, thanks.
Enjoyed the videos sir! Grew up In Richmond, sister lived above the yard in PR , folks worked at Chevron, now I live in Martinez (about a mile west of maltby) always been a railfan (grandfather worked at Pullman way back in the day)
I swore at the beginning for a few minutes,,I thought this was actually computer generated! The colors were almost too colorful to be real. The mind and the eyes play tricks.
I realized at the end someone was in the seat being trained! I remember that being me a couple years ago on the SF 2nd & 3rd District, Abq Div. Me: please tell me to set air already... 😂
My pleasure. I had intended to record all the way to Calwa for my trainees. I got bad ordered before I could do it. It left me with a priceless two hr video however
Steve do you remember the Old Yard Master for Santa Fe RR in Roseville, who was at South End of Yard in 1995?I used to be a Regular Hobo that passed through Roseville in the Santa Fe days, usually toting a Gibson ES 175 ...I am 5'2" tall He Called me a Hippie, the Big Heavy Man who crused on a Tractor always spotted me and Called the Man who would order me to come visit!I am from Hot Spring arkansas, but now live Senior Housing in San Francisco....also Ham Radio W5AWG. I used to do Ham Radio from Boxcars on my 2 Meter HT.
Hard to believe that the Golden Gate used to make that run in as little as 21 minutes back in the day. Progress, huh? That, and being a freight train, of course. But I bet that a thorough upgrade entirely within existing RoW would cut times massively.
I smile as I read this. You'd be surprised how good the radios are. My father was an executive officer in the communications department of the SP. 1972 he was the Assistant General Superintendent of Communications- System for the SP. Essentially number two in the department. A company called SPCC was developed under his department at the railroad.. They had at the time the largest privately owned microwave system in the world. It later was sold to GTE and the SPCC's name is something changed to and known as SPRINT yes SPRINT. The start of the company happened in the mid '70s. Santa Fe, Union Pacific and Southern Pacific had some incredible communications departments and radios. His budget just for Motorola alone was in the millions. What you hear on this radio wasn't crap it was pretty good. Didn't transfer well. I was a brakeman for the Southern Pacific before changing career path in the late '70s. This was 20 years later.
Did the "both trains won't fit for a meet"scenario involve your train? And I hate to be superficial, but that dispatcher doesn't sound too bright and rather indecisive when the situation arose.
