Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Speaking of Trains

Anybody know what's north of Watsonville and South of Santa Cruz that this one would be traveling from and to? [Watch]
Posted by David Codrea at 1/24/2012 08:35:00 AM

6 comments:

jon said...

doesn't appear to be anything there. maybe just a junction in the track from which they head east. hard to tell from railway maps.

no shipyard or naval station near monterey bay that i can find.

1/24/2012 9:34 AM
Mark Roote said...

I have no idea where these were heading, but I do know that Ft Irwin, CA (bordering Death Valley) is where we did desert training when I was active duty. 29 Palms is also south of there (Marine base).
I'm a little confused by the camo color. I could be wrong, but I though all new stuff was being camo'd in shades of brown and tan.
It could potentially be reserve or guard equipment that's going to be used for training on one of the desert bases in SoCal. That would explain the green camo scheme (reserves and national guard tend to be behind the times on gear upgrades).

Now, having said all that. I really have no idea what they're being shipped/used for. And it looks like a lot of equipment until you see a division (plus) load a train to go to training.

I know that back when I was in (late 90's early 00's), it was actually pretty common for long trains of military equipment to be shipped all over the country. This *could* be nothing (we sent our gear from Ft Bragg, NC to Ft Irwin, CA by train... and it was a looooong train.

1/24/2012 11:02 AM
Calgunner said...

I would question the exact location/intersection here. There are tracks running N/S there, but to the North go to Davenport for lumber and concrete deliveries (approx. 40 miles). More likely that the intersection is closer to the Salinas Valley (30 miles SE)and originated from the Port of Oakland. To the south, my best guess is that the shipment was making its way to Fort Hunter Legget, a fort with ample room to break those puppies in.

1/24/2012 11:48 AM
danno said...

Wonder if they are headed south for this: http://www.kfiam640.com/pages/NEWS.html?article=9653697

1/24/2012 12:14 PM
Crotalus (Don't Tread on Me) said...

Well, south of Santa Cruz, there is Camp Pendleton, the Marine base.

1/24/2012 12:16 PM
Joe said...

I didn't see anything to indicate where in town it was taken, but Watsonville is where the short Davenport branch meets the UP Coast Line, which is an important secondary rail link between the bay area and Los Angeles, both of which are themselves major rail centers. If this was on the Coast Line, there are a huge number of places the vehicles could reasonably have been coming from and going to.

1/24/2012 5:58 PM

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