Sometimes this is done for property tax reasons. An industrial building probably is charged property taxes. When it’s torn down,, no tax. Maybe California and Oakland should make it immune to taxes.
Ping.
This is important in terms of our nation’s history: the transcontinental railroad built our country, and Oakland, CA was its terminus (Central Pacific Railroad).
The West Oakland Yard was very interesting and active. Unfortunately, much of it was demolished in the mid-1990s to make way for the re-routed US 80 freeway loop. The double-decker portion known as the Cypress Structure, destroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, was the previous route the freeway took through West Oakland.
One of the buildings torn down at that time was the Southern Pacific Telephone Exchange building. There was another weird “half building” that was painted yellow and sat in the middle of the tracks, it might have been a control tower of sorts. Gone now, to make room for the freeway.
Here’s a nice aerial view of the West Oakland yard, from 1968:
http://www.snowcrest.net/marnells/tt1968.htm
When the past is worshipped like a God there can be no future.
Thanks for posting. I had no idea that a repair building erected only five years after the completion of the transcontinental railroad was in Oakland. I figured all of that era’s buildings and equipment were gone for a half century or more. What a shame it couldn’t be turned into a museum.
“Empire Express” by David Bain is an outstanding book about the financing, politics, and construction of the first transcontinental railroad. It is an excellent book. You don’t realize what an incredible entrepreneurial achievement this was until you dig into the history. This was the first “mega-project” in the U.S. Raising the huge amounts of capital and transporting all locomotives and rolling stock to the West Coast was just incredible.
train stuff ping
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