This blog's purpose is to share my interest in the history of the Placerville Branch during the Southern Pacific era. I'll share photographs, operational information, timetables, types of cars, track diagrams and whatever useful modeling information I find while working on my Placerville Branch modeling project.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Placerville Pt 3 - The Upper End
Station plans from SP, in June of 1956 show a whole new set of trackside industires. These plans show many revisions to the original 1906 insurance maps. The largest shippers in this most eastern part of the branch was the Michigan California Lumber Company and the Placerville Fruit Growers Association. Placerville 1956 East of Clay to CP<
A note here that the station map of Pville in 1956 does not display correctly on Google docs. You'll have to download and then enlarge. It is a Tiff file at about 200 mb.
Starting where the eastbound line crosses Clay St., then separates into 3 lines. Line 1 goes past the Ivy Hotel, May's Plumbing and Heating which may have been rail served. The station plan shows the May's building extended over Hangtown Creek and rests adjacent to the southern most track
After passing a residential block, then crossing Locust Street, line 1 splits again so that there are a total of 4 adjacent tracks. Line 1 passes by Barrett & Myers Auto Showroom with a service station out front. Its not clear if car delivery was taken by rail, but the showroom is trackside. Right next door, headed east, is the Placerville Fruit Growers Association or PFGA. This is their cold storage warehouse unit with loading dock trackside. Here some photo's of the site. source: the El Dorado County Museum
PFGA 1
PFGA 2
PFGA3
PFGA 4
The line splits again. An abandoned line passes a unnamed packing house and stops. The non abandoned portion ends as a spur track serving the PFGA box storage facility.
Placerville Box Sheds from armstrong TT 1916
Swinging back to the west and the Ivy Hotel where the lines splits, passing over the Clay Street, track 4 - the northern most line stubs into a spur in front of the PFGA. This line has been abandoned in 1956. however the line - I'll call line 3 continues adjacent to PFGA cold storage and the PFGA packing house.
A early photograph before the cold storage was built is here. looking west toward Union Street and the Placerville packing houses. probably before 1912
All lines rejoin just west of the Union Street crossing, heading northeast across hiway 50. There the line splits with a single southern stub arriving what is described as a Station. This upper Placerville Station was used by the Camino Placerville and Lake Tahoe railroad as a freight station and is in place today.
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Hi Tom. The 1956 Station Plans link says there is no such file. Could the link be broken or did you delete the file? While my interest is mostly pre1955 - when the Highway 50 expressway was built through town - these station plans would be most interesting to see. Also, the first station photo link seems to have the same problem. Craig McKibbin
ReplyDeleteHi Tom, I am having trouble with the link as well. Can you please repost? This would be very valuable to us. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me know about it Alex. A week or so ago I started to rewrite this section and hadn't finished it as of yet. I'll get it back up ASAP!
ReplyDeleteTom
OK Alex try it again when you have a chance.
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