(rshsdepot) Salinas, CA

[jdent1_@_optonline.net]

Published Saturday, January 15, 2005, in the Salinas Californian

Pulling out the stops
Groups aims to preserve Salinas depot

By Dave Nordstrand

Standing atop those rough-hewn redwood planks, sturdy as railroad
ties, one can imagine the 100-plus years old Southern Pacific Freight
Depot in its prime.

Doors would be flung wide. Crews would be loading boxcars with
cereals, sugar beats, beans and condensed milk.

Then the towering engines would blow steam, shudder against their
loads and spin those mighty wheels.

That's how it was in the early days of the Freight Depot built in the
late 1800s west of the Salinas Amtrak Station.

Today, the Freight Depot stands as a faded yellow structure, a memory
in lockdown and slated for demolition.

Yet, people with an eye toward preservation are looking at it again.

On Tuesday, I joined a group stepping into the depot's murky interior.
Flashlights and cameras at the ready, they snapped photos and
inspected the sturdy timbers.

The area around the Salinas Amtrak Station, of course, moves toward
becoming an "inter-modal transportation center." That is a place for
rail, taxi, bus -- airport service, Greyhound, MST -- and other
services to converge.

Earliest completion would be 2009.

In tandem goes an historical component.

The first mayor's house, the Harvey-Baker House, sits at the site. So
does a steam locomotive exhibit and the Railway Express Agency
Building in which the Salinas Model Railroaders runs a display.

Past links to present and present links to future.

That's what makes the depot area so valuable to a city which must
build its economy without sacrificing its heritage and identity.

In the depot area, the continuum remains intact.

Long-range plans also call for Caltrain commuter service from Gilroy
to Pajaro to Castroville and Salinas. The Freight Depot, built
between 1875 and 1891, could serve as a passenger terminal for that
service.

"The structure of this building is probably more substantial than a
new one," said Jeanne Gewalt, on the inspection tour.

Gewalt is architectural historian for Parsons Engineering of San Jose,
involved with planning the Caltrain effort.

Also on the tour was Alan Stumpf, city redevelopment director for The
Transportation Agency of Monterey County.

With the depot doors open, wind scattered dust across the barren
floor. Rows of rail cars sat sidetracked.

To adjust for a Caltrain passenger spur, the old Freight Depot might
have to be slightly altered, Gewalt said.

"It could be moved," she said of the building. "It could be
disassembled and rebuilt. It shouldn't just be scrapped."

In 1998, historian Kent Seavey compiled a study on the buildings in
the area for the city of Salinas.

The old Freight Depot, he writes, serves as a reminder of the role "of
agricultural shipping in the economic growth and development of
Salinas and Monterey County."

Trains "delivered the Salinas Valley's agricultural products to the
Market well into the twentieth century," the report says.

At 6 p.m. Tuesday, TAMC will conduct a meeting on the old building at
City Hall's West Wing Conference Room, 200 Lincoln Ave., on the
Freight Depot.

Like anything 100 years old, the building has developed flaws -- mold
and asbestos siding, for examples. Nothing, though, that can't be
safely removed.

The ultimate question is whether to renovate the old structure and
bring it back to life.

Roll it out of the roundhouse of time, in other words. Give it a new
and exciting track to follow.

Whether to do all that or not.

Anyone who's soul has ever been captured by the long and lonesome
whistle from a train rumbling up the valley already knows the answer.


TO HELP

A meeting about the future, and past, of the Southern Pacific Freight
Depot will take place 6 p.m. Tuesday in the West Wing Conference Room
at Salinas City Hall, 200 Lincoln Ave.

People with an interest in the building, or in preserving it, or
people who have knowledge of its history are urged to attend the
Transportation Authority of Monterey County special meeting.

Please R.S.V.P. to Denise Estrada, director of maintenance services
for the city, so that she can prepare copies of duplicated materials
for everyone. Call 831-758-7152.

The building may be demolished, but there is an effort to preserve it
as a functional part of the Intermodal Transportation Center.


Dave Nordstrand is a staff writer for The Salinas Californian. His
column appears Wednesdays and Saturdays. If you have a comment or an
idea for a column, call him at 831-754-4268. Write to him at The
Salinas Californian, P.O. Box 81091, Salinas 93912.

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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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