See the link below concerning the city council recently deciding to move the depot 400 feet away from its current location. Is this for real? The building is brick and it is huge.

http://www.ngdiscussion.net/cgi-bin/NGDFcook.pl?read=40364
ryarger@rypn.org

Illustrating the building's size.

http://ns2.railspot.com/sptco/California/Sacramento_CA04.jpg
ryarger@rypn.org

> See the link below concerning the city
> council recently deciding to move the depot
> 400 feet away from its current location. Is
> this for real? The building is brick and it
> is huge.

Yes, it, for real, and no, in my opinion is its very definately not stupid. At the moment the former SP mainline comes off the Sac river bridge and makes a rather wicked S-curve in front of the depot. UP and Amtrak and CalDOT are all determined to ease that S-curve to eliminate speed restrictions and a generally painful operating headache. The net result is a relocated mainline and passenger platforms a few hundred yards behind the original depot, closer to the shops site.

The only way to keep the depot as a functioning depot is 1. put a few hundred yard concourse behind it to reach the trains, or 2. move it to the trains. Of course, no one wants to buy their ticket and then have an airport-length hike to the platforms. So its move it, or leave it where it is to be adaptively reused as a non-station.

Personally, I want to see the depot stay a living, working depot--so I favor the move.

eledbetter@rypn.org

Just how does one move such a structure without ending up with an unusable pile of rubble? Sounds like a giant boondoggle to me. This is California, not Buffalo. What's a little walk in the sunshine?

ryarger@rypn.org

> Just how does one move such a structure
> without ending up with an unusable pile of
> rubble? Sounds like a giant boondoggle to
> me. This is California, not Buffalo. What's
> a little walk in the sunshine?

It's been done before. Note the moving of the famous 205-foot-tall Cape Hatteras Lighthouse a few years ago, and the moving of a 13,000-ton cathedral in Germany a while back.

Just remember that the vagrancies of historic-preservation funding are such that a move may qualify for funding that dismantling and reconstruction, or a new in-kind structure, nay not.


LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net

> Just how does one move such a structure
> without ending up with an unusable pile of
> rubble? Sounds like a giant boondoggle to
> me. This is California, not Buffalo. What's
> a little walk in the sunshine?

As a commuter who used to hike through the tunnel from the real Washington DC Union Station headhouse to the new "bus depot" Union Station two blocks behind it, that little walk will be a persistant pain in the tail. No busy commuter wants to waste another 10-15 minutes every working day of his or her life walking through a habitrail tube to and from the tracks. Yes, the total elapsed distance is the same whether you are outside walking to the relocated station, or inside walking from the un-relocated station through a tube to the tracks, but the asethetics of the experience makes all the difference--and little things have a real impact on a commuter's quality of life.

And yes, like Sandy says, it's won't be easy to move the building but it certainly can be done.

If you really want to dig into this there is a good analysis of all the alternatives considered for the depot and all the competing planning priorities in this report--it's a long read but in my opinion worth it to understand the compting pressures:

http://www.pwsacramento.com/sitf/products.html

eledbetter@rypn.org

I have looked at that site before, though my Adobe Acrobat is acting up right now and locks up my computer. I know it is probably not technically impossible to move the station, just impractical and not very sensible considering the state's budget woes. I can forsee huge cost overruns, a possible pile of ruined brickwork, decades of lawsuits, and replacement with a simple concrete Ambox if it is attempted.

> http://www.pwsacramento.com/sitf/products.html


ryarger@rypn.org

> Yes, it, for real, and no, in my opinion is
> its very definately not stupid. At the
> moment the former SP mainline comes off the
> Sac river bridge and makes a rather wicked
> S-curve in front of the depot. UP and Amtrak
> and CalDOT are all determined to ease that
> S-curve to eliminate speed restrictions and
> a generally painful operating headache. The
> net result is a relocated mainline and
> passenger platforms a few hundred yards
> behind the original depot, closer to the
> shops site.

> The only way to keep the depot as a
> functioning depot is 1. put a few hundred
> yard concourse behind it to reach the
> trains, or 2. move it to the trains. Of
> course, no one wants to buy their ticket and
> then have an airport-length hike to the
> platforms. So its move it, or leave it where
> it is to be adaptively reused as a
> non-station.

> Personally, I want to see the depot stay a
> living, working depot--so I favor the move.

When Chicago's Stevens Hotel was built, late 20s
I believe, all the buildings in the block were razed or moved. One that was moved was a 9 story
brick structure that was moved south on Michigan
Ave. to the WEST side of the 1100 block. When the
IC decided in needed more office space the building was moved to the EAST side of Michigan Ave and became the annex to the Illinois Central Station.
So moving a brick building is no problem. Heck, the Chicago Chimney Company moved the 208' Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which is brick, 2900 feet over sand !!

Jim

rrfanjim@charter.net

> So moving a brick building is no problem.
> Heck, the Chicago Chimney Company moved the
> 208' Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which is
> brick, 2900 feet over sand !!

> Jim

Jim-

A correction; it was International Chimney Company, out of Buffalo, New York. I know becuase we have been working with them to try and preserve (read move) the last surviving structure (paint shop) of the Port Huron & Lake Michigan (later Chicago & Grand Trunk) here in Port Huron, which is a brink structure.

TJG


tjgaffney@phmuseum.org

TJ and all,

building movers have to think big. The Maritime Park just moved a sailing schioooner that weighs over 400 tons. Which is neat, but the Seattle company that did it told us about their next job which will be to move a safe out of the sub-basement of a building. It weighs in at 2 million pounds. How is that for lifting power!

Ted Miles

ted_miles@nps.gov

I think they should put the freight mains back in to the north of the depost but the passenger tracks and the depot should stay put. The bottleneck occurs when a passenger train is in the depot, no freight movements are allowed in sacto while amtrak is in the depot. If the freight mains bypass the depot amtrak would get another storage rail and the UP would not come to a stop every time an amtrak train arrived. They could bring light rail in on what was depot 3 or 4. If they want a historic looking depot knock down the current building and build a replica of the cathedral station that existed at the turn of the century.

rstabler@sbcglobal.net

> The bottleneck occurs when a passenger
> train is in the depot, no freight movements
> are allowed in sacto while amtrak is in the
> depot.

Not true; happens all the time.

> If the freight mains bypass the depot
> amtrak would get another storage rail and
> the UP would not come to a stop every time
> an amtrak train arrived.

At nearly $100,000 per power switch . . .

> They could bring
> light rail in on what was depot 3 or 4.

Nice idea, wondered about it myself for years. It may soon be necessary to put back Deot 4 for use by passenger trains. Bringing the light rail on that side of the depot might put it under FRA jurisdiction because of being closer than 30 feet to a general system railroad.

Mains 2 and 1 are only 13' 6" on centers, which is way too close.

I don't believe that the feasability of a move has been determined yet. Remember that the building was built in 1926, five years before the Field Act. This was only brought up about a month ago, there is no way an engineering study could be completed in that time. This is really just a grab by the powers that be to get some development on the corner, and the front portion of the depot and the parking lot are covering the parcel they covet. It may end up being totally unfeasable to move the building itself, then our worthy?? council members might have to come up with plan Jsub2 or whatever. As to rebuilding the freight main as it was, forget it. It was removed in the mid 50's because the crossovers were totally unsuitable for freight movement back then.
The only way to do it now would be to widen out the radius off the bridge, putting the new mains about 150 feet South of the old freight mains. Then when you get done building the new ladder you might end up with only about a 550 foot move of the building itself, if even that. By that time it might not look so economically feasable. As to replacing track 4. It's not that it "may be necessary", it HAS been necessary for at least two years now. In the last month UP has taken a Coast Route through job off the Cal-P by changing the crew change point from Oakland to Santa Clara. By the time this all comes to pass, I think the Cal-P will be much more weighted towards passenger service. At the time of Pearl Harbor, 18 first class trains passed Martinez each day, in each direction, yet they still managed to run freight and a lot of switchers. It doesn't appear to me that these people making all these grandoise plans today have any historical perspective. Hence they are doomed to repeat all the mistakes of the past.

bbyrum9@foothill.net

-- snip --

> As to rebuilding the freight main
> as it was, forget it. It was removed in the
> mid 50's because the crossovers were totally
> unsuitable for freight movement back then.
> putting the

There were two freight bypass tracks, and how is it that I ran a freight train over one of them in 1974/75 (through the crossovers too)? Besides, the crossovers weren't changed from 10 mph hand-throws to 20 mph power switches until the Cal-P rebuilding program of, what, 5 years ago? The crossovers in the curve at the east end of the depot were removed in the late 1970s/early 1980s. What killed using the bypass tracks was SP's desire to get rid of the herding jobs necessary to route trains to and from them and not to spend the money necessary replace the herders with power switches.

> The only way to do it now would be to widen
> out the radius off the bridge,

As of this last Wednesday, the tracks came straight off the bridge, no curve.

> new mains about 150 feet South of the old
> freight mains. Then when you get done
> building the new ladder you might end up
> with only about a 550 foot move of the
> building itself, if even that. By that time
> it might not look so economically feasable.

If one of the power crossovers was moved to the west side of the bridge, then there would be plenty of room for a freight bypass connection /and/ to rebuild the platform area so that the track centers could be brought up to modern standards (and a fence installed between #1 and #2 tracks) without impinging at all on the present platform length.

> As to replacing track 4. It's not that it
> "may be necessary", it HAS been
> necessary for at least two years now. In the
> last month UP has taken a Coast Route
> through job off the Cal-P by changing the
> crew change point from Oakland to Santa
> Clara.

What route between Santa Clara and Roseville? Is this train adding to the congestions delaying the Sac-Bfd trains between Polk and Stockton?

> By the time this all comes to pass, I
> think the Cal-P will be much more weighted
> towards passenger service. At the time of
> Pearl Harbor, 18 first class trains passed
> Martinez each day,

20 in 1943, 24 in 1938.

> in each direction, yet
> they still managed to run freight and a lot
> of switchers.

1 freight each hour during a 24 hour day in the early 1950s, most likely quite a bit fewer than during the War.

> It doesn't appear to me that
> these people making all these grandoise
> plans today have any historical perspective.
> Hence they are doomed to repeat all the
> mistakes of the past.

They usually do.