Garfield CA. Flag Stop-1940

By Mike Parker; posted May 2, 2010

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An old photo of the Garfield, California flag stop station, located between Oakland and Sacramento. This bucolic setting on the Sacramento Northern electric railroad is in the farm country of rural California, far from the two urban areas it connected from 1913 to 1953. Note the water tank with a windmill, the poppies growing, the cattle guard on the track and the quaint arch window station shed, complete with a telephone. The pole line and overhead wires are interesting. The top crossarm with multiparts was a 22,000 volt line interconnecting 2 substations. The second crossarm carried one 1500 volt DC cable and two 2200 volt AC wires which occasional small transformers converted to low voltage AC to power the automatic train signals along the entire track. The bottom crossarm carried railroad telephone and signal wires. The overhead pickup wire above the track, carried 1500 volts DC to power the rail cars. To see a photo of this crossing in 2009, [id=277470462].

All in view is gone today except the railroad track. The GOOD news is that this site now belongs to the nearby Western Railway Museum and the poles and rail car wire have been carefully re-created as an exact replica. The museum even operates several of the electric cars and engines that once ran here at the time of this photo, now restored and running. Courtesy Western Railway Museum www.wrm.org, and bayarearailfan.org.

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