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(rshsdepot) Millbrae, CA
From today's San Francisco Chronicle.
Bernie Wagenblast
Transportation Communications Newsletter
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/transport-communications
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Train museums are just the ticket for railroad aficionados
Old Millbrae depot displays everything from china to chairs
- - Janet Somers, Special to The Chronicle
Friday, February 4, 2005
One recent Saturday afternoon, Bob Gorran was showing a visitor around the
new Millbrae Train Museum, located in the old Caltrain depot a few hundred
feet south of the BART/Caltrain station. Gorran, 81, wore a 20-year- old
orange-and-white Southern Pacific Railroad baseball cap that was held
together in the back with silver duct tape. It was his first day as a museum
docent, but he didn't have a steep learning curve; he had paid his way
through UC Berkeley by working on trains. "I know trains," he said. "I know
train history; I'm old enough, believe me!"
"These are the original chairs, right here," he told the visitor, Casey
McCord of Pacifica, and pointed to a row of lacquered black benches. Each
seat was pierced with dozens of tiny "vent holes" in the formation of the
Southern Pacific Railroad's sun-ray logo, to cool an occupant's back. "This
is what the place looked like a long time ago," he said, pointing to a group
of photos of people getting on and off trains in the 1860s. "And these are
original lanterns."
There were switch liner lanterns and caboose lanterns; there were yellow
"caution" lanterns, red "danger" lanterns and blue "working-on-the-train"
lanterns. There were train dishes, train maps, train paintings, strange-
looking train tools and a brass plaque from January 1865, reading, "Will
Passengers Kindly Refrain From Using This Water Closet Whilst The Train Is
In A Station."
"Do you know why that sign was there?" Gorran asked, and then answered:
"Because in the olden days, you'd look down the toilet and see the tracks."
McCord, 44, nodded and took it all in, his hands in the pockets of his
Giants jacket. He likes trains and train museums, he said, and he had hopped
Caltrain from San Francisco just to see this one.
The museum opened in October, a couple of years after Vernon Bruce -- train
enthusiast, proprietor of Millbrae Lock and treasurer of the Millbrae
Historical Society -- heard that Caltrain was going to abandon the little,
two-story wooden depot and move into the shiny new BART/Caltrain station.
"I thought it was sad, but also an opportunity," said Bruce, 48, who founded
the museum and is now its curator. "You can make an opportunity out of
almost any event, sad or happy."
Millbrae's first depot, which was made of adobe, had been built in 1864 and
belonged to the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad Co., the oldest commuter
railroad west of the Mississippi. Twice, the station had burned down and
been rebuilt: in 1898 and 1907. Once, the Millbrae Historical Society had
come to its rescue, listing it on the National Register of Historic Places
when Southern Pacific, which had bought out the San Francisco & San Jose in
1868, wanted to tear it down in 1976. In 1980, the station had been dragged
200 feet to the south to accommodate the widening of Millbrae Avenue.
It had served successively under the San Francisco & San Jose, the Southern
Pacific, the California Department of Transportation, and finally, the Joint
Powers Board -- a consortium of Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco
county transportation agencies that took over Caltrain in 1992. It had once
housed a freight forwarding company; it had once housed a coffee shop called
"Java Junction." When JPB decided in 2002 it would vacate it the following
year, the little depot had reached its last stop.
Bruce sprang into action. He made a deal with JPB: The Millbrae Historical
Society could use the building in exchange for taking care of it. He got a
group of friends together, most of them from the society, to spiff up the
place and fill it with train memorabilia.
"Vern and I went down to look at the place," said Dennis Reeves, 52, a
handyman, "and we realized it needed to be cleaned. I got up on the roof,
and the black lettering in the 'Millbrae' sign looked good, but the white
around it was dirty from all the diesel exhaust. So I gave the white a new
coat of paint to make it look nice for the grand opening. I have a pressure
washer, and I pressure-washed the outside; it's an old SP building, and the
paint is so thick on it that you couldn't hurt it with a pressure washer if
you tried.
"If you look outside, there are four or five planter boxes that I helped
some Boy Scouts make. We built the planter boxes out of redwood donated by
Millbrae Lumber, and Orchard Supply donated $30 towards plants. I had the
kids research the plants; they picked out roses for one box, lantana for
another, and some purple sage."
Gino Micheli and his wife, Gerry, of Pacifica, loaned their collection of
railroad china.
"Vern wanted some exhibits," said Micheli, 66, "so we brought down our
railroad dishes and a few other things. We've been collecting at flea
markets and garage sales for 12 years, maybe more. We like to collect train
artifacts, dishes, all of that."
Micheli met Bruce about 12 years ago at the Golden Gate Railroad Museum in
Hunters Point, where Bruce keeps his prize possession: a 1930s Pullman
sleeper car from the "City of San Francisco," a luxurious train that ran the
"Overland Route" from San Francisco to Chicago. Each car on the train was
named after an area of San Francisco: Sutro Heights, Mission Dolores,
Telegraph Hill, Hunters Point. A watercolor print of Bruce's bright yellow
car, the Civic Center, hangs in the museum.
Bruce bought the car from the estate of a talk-show host in Sioux Falls,
S.D., for "$20,000 plus shipping" and is restoring its light fixtures,
electrical system and air conditioning. He plans to transport it and two
other vintage cars, loaned by separate owners, to the Millbrae museum later
this year. Then he plans to acquire a vintage locomotive, recruit volunteers
to lay a milelong section of track, and begin to take museum guests on
picnic and dinner excursions.
The "City of San Francisco," jointly operated by the Southern Pacific, Union
Pacific and Chicago & North Western railroad companies, was the 10th of
several dozen Streamliner trains made by Union Pacific in the 1930s. It
boasted the latest equipment of the time, including air conditioning,
fluorescent lighting and electronically controlled brakes.
Southern Pacific separately built two similarly modern trains, the
Streamlined Daylight and the Streamlined Lark, both of which passed through
Millbrae on their way from San Francisco to Los Angeles. (Union Pacific,
SP's competitor, held the trademark for the word "Streamliner.") The Lark,
which ran at night, stopped in Burlingame, Palo Alto and San Jose; the
Daylight ran during the daytime, with stops in San Jose, Salinas, San Luis
Obispo, Santa Barbara and Glendale (Los Angeles County). The Daylight,
according to Bruce, was the most expensive train made at that time, costing
about $1 million to build. Nowadays, he says, a single train car costs
around $2 million, and most trains have 18 cars.
An oil painting on one wall of the museum shows the Daylight -- a sleek,
black-bodied train with thick orange stripes and a ilver headlight --
speeding through a small Central California town.
Bruce and his crew held the grand opening of the museum on October 23, a
rainy Saturday afternoon. The mayor, the city council, and a congressman
came; but mostly, there were just a lot of people who like trains.
"In San Mateo, we kids used to go down to the railroad tracks and watch the
Lark and the Daylight go by," Dennis Reeves said. "We knew what time the
trains came, and we'd ride down on our bikes and watch them come through at
75 miles per hour. They were beautiful rail cars. The Lark was stainless
steel with a line down the side, and the Daylight was two-tone orange. Life
was good here in the '50s and '60s."
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whoo hoo, choo-choos
There are four train museums from San Francisco to Santa Clara.
Golden Gate Railroad Museum
Features: An extensive collection of operating historic railroad equipment.
Location: Hunters Point Shipyard, San Francisco.
Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, by appointment Monday-Friday.
Admission: $5, $2 children, seniors.
Contact: (415) 822-8728; www.ggrm.org..
Millbrae Train Museum
Features: Train artifacts, maps, memorabilia and artwork. Vintage train cars
are planned.
Location: California and Murchison drives, adjacent to the Caltrain parking
lot southwest of the BART/Caltrain station. (Mailing address is 21 E.
Millbrae Ave., but the museum is not accessible via Millbrae Avenue.)
Hours: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday and by appointment.
Admission: $2; free for children under 7, Millbrae Historical Society
members.
Contact: Vern Bruce at Millbrae Historical Society, (650) 333-1136;
www.millbraehs.org..
Colma's historic train depot
Features: A museum on train, streetcar and BART travel; part of the Colma
Cultural and Community Center.
Location: 1500 Hillside Blvd., Colma.
Hours: 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday.
Admission: Free, donations accepted.
Contact: Colma Historical Association, (650) 757-1676.
South Bay Historical Railroad Society
Features: Two operational model railroads. Also houses the Edward Peterman
Museum of Railroad History containing railroad artifacts.
Location: Santa Clara Caltrain station, 1005 Railroad Ave., Santa Clara.
Hours: 6-9 p.m. Tuesday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday
Admission: Free.
Contact: (408) 243-3969; www.sbhrs.org.
- -- Janet Somers
- -- Janet Somers
E-mail comments to sffriday_@_sfchronicle.com.E-mail comments to
penfriday_@_sfchronicle.com.
Page F - 1
URL:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/04/WBGHOB2SIF1.DTL
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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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End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #1079
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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org