At one time traffic was so busy at the SP-WP West San Jose crossing that a tower was required to control movement across SP's Vasona line and WP's San Jose branch. By September 12, 1993, with most shippers and all passenger trains gone, a stop sign is sufficient to protect the crossing. Having dutifully stopped to check for trains on the now Union Pacific tracks, SP's Permanente Local, with Cotton Belt GP40-2 7253 and 7639, proceeds down the line that was built in the 1870s as South Pacific Coast's narrow-gauge route to Los Gatos and Santa Cruz. When UP also took over the SP, a connection was built here between the two lines to reach the last customer on this end of the former WP branch, where the boxcar is spotted on the left in this photo. Then UP abandoned the remainder of the ex-WP West San Jose line. Today this area has been transformed by the abandonment of all the former WP tracks and the addition of the VTA trolley line running parallel to the UP. Ektachrome 100X
Photographs where trains and people mix, weather it's street running, plant switching or carrying a unit grain train out of an elevator, it will be put here.
