Original
Mainline Right of Way & Alignment
The next bit of information comes from Don Jewell, a native of San Francisco, whose parents once owned a grocery story across the street from the S.F. Municipal Railway's Geneva car house, and one block east of the old SP main. Don writes, now this is an area that I really know... starting from Bernal Cut south (RR east). The Bernal Cut was created by the SP and was envisoned to have a 2 track mainline and a 2 track interurban as well. The 1906 earthquake and the subsequent building of the Bayshore Cutoff took care of any plans to expand in Bernal Cut. Sometime after this line was truncated, the eastern portion was renamed the Elkton Branch.
(The following photos are of Bernal Cut, now San Jose Avenue, where the SP mainline once ran!)
The reason that this old SP line was retained south (eastbound) of Bernal Cut was because there were a number of customers along the remaining part in San Francisco. The first one was just east of Bernal Cut, Sun-Ray Oil on San Jose Avenue at St. Mary's Avenue. They recieved tank cars about twice per week, Sun-Ray was on the east side of the San Jose Avenue and the remaining SP track was on the west, so the spur crossed San Jose and was protected by a cross-buck sign. Continuing south (eastbound) there was a siding along Circular Street just north of Ocean Avenue. It was about 20 cars long and had switches at both ends. This became a team track for lumber and sheet rock unloading. This area was right next to the City's Balboa Park were soccer is played today. City College is up the hill somewhat and overlooked this siding.
(These photos represent the general area of where the mainline once ran, the last photo on the right is behind Balboa Park and this is believed to be the area where the 20 car siding was.)
Again continuing south the line crossed Ocean Avenue and reached the station of Elkton, just some 300 feet south of Ocean Avenue. This was an important station as two customers were served here -- the Eaton & Smith Construction Company cement plant and the S.F. Municipal Railway. The Eaton & Smith plant was located on San Jose Avenue at Lee Street and received 5-10 cars per day loaded with cement, sand and rock. The Muni recieved rail and other supplies here, including the delivery of all their PCC cars from 1006 to 1040 and 1101 to 1166. Muni shipped out quite a bit of scrap steel in GS gondolas as well. Eaton & Smith folded up their plant here about 1952, but Muni continued as a shipper. The Eaton & Smith location today is now the southwest part of the I-280/Ocean Avenue junction.
Going eastbound again the SP line went under the San Jose Viaduct just south of Mt. Vernon Street and ran on a curving ledge below the houses on the east side of San Jose Avenue. The line then crossed back over San Jose Avenue at Sickles Avenue. The building on the corner of San Jose and Sagamore Street has an angled wall on it's south side where the SP went past. On the east side of San Jose Avenue there was a spur track that was often used as a team-track. By the way all these street crossings were only protected by cross-bucks.
(This is I-280, the SP alignment once ran on the southbound side of the freeway on a ledge just below San Jose Avenue. This is the building refered to in the story, the tracks once ran were the cars are parked.)
The BART track alignment today is just about where the SP line ran between Circular Street and the San Francisco County Line (give or take 10-50 feet at some locations). There is probably more on this SP segment that I have forgotten, but I saw this line 6 days a week from 1947 to 1961. And even got to ride on it a couple of times. The steam power was usually a 4-6-0 or 2-8-0 running backwards up to Elkton and Sun-Ray Oil. When diesels came, ALCo S-2's were the power for quite a while, although Baldwin S-12 #1453 was tried out for a couple of days. Later the switcher was always and F-M H12-44.
Don Jewell