Telstar Logistics

Sad Goodbye: After 140 Years, the Southern Pacific's "West Oakland Diesel Shop" Has Been Demolished

Sad news for railfans and infrastructure history geeks this week: The "West Oakland Diesel Shop" has been torn down.

If you frequent Interstate 880 in Oakland, California, chances are you noticed the structure; it was a conspicuous landmark alongside the highway for anyone traveling to or from the Bay Bridge.

The building looked old, but until recently, we didn't realize how truly historic it was. Portions of the structure dated back to the 1870s, just a few years after the Transcontinental Railroad was completed. Harry Wong compiled a good history of the building:

The Southern Pacific/Central Pacific Car Paint Shop, later the Southern Pacific Diesel Shop, was the oldest extant industrial railroad building in Oakland and a significant reminder of Oakland’s historic role as the western terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad. The southeastern half of the building dates to 1874, just five years after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. [...]

By the late 1870s, transcontinental passengers and freight began arriving in Oakland. Due to the great need for extensive railroad facilities here at the western end of the Transcontinental Railroad, the railroad in the 1870s established switching yards, a roundhouse, car repair shops, car building shops, a creosoting plant and shipyards. The Southern Pacific Paint shop, once part of the enormous West Oakland car and repair shops yard, was used to paint and varnish the passenger cars built and maintained by the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads. [...]

In 1942, the Southern Pacific Paint Shop was modified to serve the diesel locomotives of the new “City of San Francisco” streamliner and renamed the Streamliner Shop. The original arched doors were modified at this time to accommodate the newer, larger equipment. The Shop was altered again in 1949 and 1956 and a small compressor house added to the north side of the building in 1958. It is equipped with sub-floor inspection pits, elevated service walkways, and a small machine shop.

Historic photos of the West Oakland Diesel Shop are rare, but here's one that shows the structure in use in 1958, with a few stylish Alco PA locomotives out front:

As you can see, the trains changed, but the building itself didn't evolve much between then and September 2010:

And finally, here's how it looked earlier this week, as the buildng was being torn down:

Although Union Pacific demolished the Diesel Shop, the railroad was kind enough to organize a tour of the structure last month, and Telstar Logistics was invited to participate. Here are our pictures of the building... which are, sadly, now all that remains of it:

Images: 1958 image by John West. Demolition image courtesy of Anonymous. All other images, Telstar Logistics.

Giant Lego Replica of Aircraft Carrier USS Intrepid

What is there to say about Ed Diment's 23 foot-long Lego replica of the Essex Class aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, other than "WOW."

Modeled after the ship as it looked in February, 1945, the period-perfect details include motorized gun turrets, TBM Avenger torpedo planes, and F4U Corsair fighters.

The Lego Intrepid was unveiled at the Great Western Lego Show Swindon, UK last weekend. Brilliant!

"Project Intrepid" (Flickr Photoset)

Images: Ed Diment

Operation Telstar: How Telstar 1 Fought for Freedom Alongside the Mormon Tabernacle Choir(?!)

From the "When Galaxies Collide" Department...

The Arts and Leisure section of today's Sunday New York Times carried a front-page story about a bizarre tale involving our namesake, the Telstar 1 telecommunications satellite, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

This seems like an unlikely pairing to contemporary ears, because, as we've discussed previously, Telstar 1 did come with a popular soundtrack. But the #1 hit song from 1962 that we now know as "Telstar" was created by a British music producer named Joe Meek.

Before "Telstar" topped the charts, however, Telstar 1 participated in an all-American event with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to strike a blow for freedom as part of a Cold War propaganda campaign. The Times recalls how the historic day unfolded shortly after Telstar reached orbit:

At 3:30 in the morning on July 23, 1962, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir gathered at the airport [in Salt Lake City] for a flight to a military base in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Preparations for a now nearly forgotten salvo of the cold war, called Operation Telstar, were under way.

It was time to sing.

The 360-member choir, the lyrical voice of Mormonism since pioneer days, was on a mission with multiple levels, historians and surviving singers say. They were to be the featured musical anchor later that day for the first international satellite television program -- a blast of American culture and technological prowess aimed at Europe, using a wobbly, 170-pound satellite that had been launched into orbit that month.

King Tutankhamun's "Tutmobile" Rolls into NYC

It doesn't have bulletproof armor, flat-screen TVs, air conditioning, or a built-in wet bar stocked with Courvoisier, but this chariot was nevertheless fit for a Pharaoh.

Used by King Tutankhamun -- aka King Tut -- around 1300 BCE, it's now on display in Times Square in New York. More rat rod than Rolls Royce, the New York Times explains that Tut's ride is "considered uniquely amazing by scholars because it is the only one that shows signs of wear and tear. So it has long been thought that it was the chariot actually used by the boy king for battle or, more likely, for hunting."

If you happen to be in NYC, grab yourself a hot dog, crank up the Steve Martin, and go see how the boy king liked to roll.

Photo: The New York Times

An Unfond Farewell to San Francisco's Dingy, Dark, Fetid Transbay Terminal

The Transbay Terminal in downtown San Francisco is a vaguely Art Deco transit station that was opened in 1939. Originally built to serve as the terminus for commuter trains traversing the Bay Bridge (which was completed at roughly the same time), the Transbay Terminal became a bus-only facility in the late-1950s -- and it has basically been in a steady state decline ever since. Here's what it looked like in '39:

The structure has barely changed since it opened, and today an unknowing visitor might be forgiven for wondering if it hadn't been cleaned since, either. The Transbay Terminal is a dingy, depressing, and fetid place -- think New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal, but without the bustle of crowds to at least provide some vitality. This probably explains why so little nostalgia has accompanied the announcement that the Transbay Terminal will close permanently on August 7, 2010. Thereafter it will be demolished, and eventually replaced with a gleaming new facility that will be home to a César Pelli-designed high-rise tower, a 5.4 acre rooftop park, and an underground train station for (hopefully) high speed rail service to Los Angeles.

In the meantime, the imminent closure of the current Transbay Terminal has prompted a flurry of last-minute photo-documentation, as transit geeks from around the Bay Area have converged on the doomed building to wander it's dank corridors, savor its charmless monumentality, and revel in its urine-scented ambiance.

From the long-shuttered Cuddles cocktail bar to the facility's abandoned drunk tank, it's last call for the Transbay Terminal, and we joined the throngs to take some final pictures of our own. Join us, then, as we explore the dark corners of the Transbay Terminal one last time.

Farewell, Transbay Terminal (Flickr photoset by Telstar Logistics)

Inside Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's 1964 Mail-Order Catalog

Hot on the heels of his kool kollection of vintage kustom car postcards, Coop has come through yet again with a scanned set of images that take us back in time to peek inside Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's 1964 mail-order catalog of decals, t-shirts, sweatshirts, and clothes for the kids.

"Who was Big Daddy Roth?" you ask? Oh goodness. Roth was a seminal figure in the 1960s hot rod and underground art scene, and if you aren't familiar with his work you need to get schooled. (Hint: Try here and here.)

Roth's 1964 catalog provides acts a a nice time capsule of his graphic art, but it does fill us with some regret... It's just too bad we can't still fill out the order form to get some of this fabulous merch shipped to the Telstar Logistics global headquarters!

More pages at Coop's set of images from Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's 1964 Monster Catalog

A Finer Ford from 1947

Every once in a while, time seems to stop. The scenario usually unfolds something like this:

We're out and about. The sun is shining. We're not in too much of a rush to be someplace else...

We spot a vintage car in good condition. It's parked in a place where there's no trace of modernity to yank us back to the present day. Oh, and we have a camera with us. So we frame the picture, push the shutter button, and then -- Presto! -- fate hands us a photo that could have been taken today, or yesterday, or (as was the case with this particular example) more than 60 years ago.

Indeed, the vehicle shown above is a 1947 Ford, and as you can see, it's in near-original condition, but for some minor surface rust and faded paint. We spotted it recently in Pacifica, California, and felt compelled to take a few snapshots.

It was only after we got home and downloaded the images that we realized how much of a time-warp the scene really was -- an effect enhanced, perhaps, by the short length of white picket fence visible in the background.

Pacifica 2010, or Mayberry 1947? Either way, it would look about the same.

Just to complete the experience, here's what we saw when we peeked in the window:

Vintage advertisement via Adclassix.com. Photos by Telstar Logistics

Historic Hangar One May Become Western Outpost for Smithsonian Museum

Preservationists hoping to save Hangar One -- a landmark, historic dirigible hangar at Moffett Federal Airfield in Silicon Valley  -- have hit upon a new idea to make the imperiled structure viable: Adapt the building to house a West Coast outpost of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Genius!

The Mountain View Voice reports:

Environmentalist Lenny Siegel, pilot Steve Williams and County Airports director Carl Honaker are among the Save Hangar One Committee leaders on the board of the newly formed Air and Space West Foundation. The three are leaders of a group that has been fighting to save Hangar One as the Navy moves to strip the hangar down to a bare frame in order to remove contamination from the structure by next year.

The group is thinking farther into Hangar One's future. Hopes are that with enough interest and financial backing from donors, Hangar One could be home to a major earth, air and space museum -- possibly as one of numerous satellite museums that operate under the umbrella of the Smithsonian Institute in the United States.

Early talks with the Smithsonian about turning Hangar One into a major West Coast museum have been promising, said Larry Ellis, the group's CEO and a Silicon Valley business development manager and longtime Hangar One preservationist. The caveat is that the Smithsonian cannot pay for the venture -- the group must raise all of the money for the museum itself, which is not unusual for Smithsonian satellite museums, Ellis said.

This is indeed a clever idea, as evidenced by the fact that a similar building is already in use at the Tillamook Air Museum in Oregon. Throw in the fact that, as the Voice points out, "the Smithsonian has no museum in California and no real presence on the West Coast," and the idea gains some additional logic. Fingers crossed.

Photos: Telstar Logistics

Super Scans of 1960s Kustom Car Postcards

As always, Coop delivers.

Artist and illustrator Chris Cooper has performed a great public service by scanning a massive set of vintage postcards that show classic car show hot rods from the 1960s. As Coop put it, the scans are "scanned big enough to see the Benday dots!" (If you're in to that sort of thing.)

Wonderful stuff. Check the whole set of Sixties Showcar Postcards.

A Peek Inside the Mothball Fleet at Suisun Bay

Photos by Amy Heiden

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to a vast collection of modern military ruins that are a joy to explore, but of all the relics located here, none is more inviting, or as inaccessible, as the sprawling mothball fleet of inactive ships stored by the US Department of Defense at Suisun Bay, some 30+ miles northeast of downtown San Francsico.

Maintained as part of the National Defense Reserve Fleet, the dozens of "ghost ships" at Suisun Bay include everything from the battleship USS Iowa to tired old Liberty-class transports, and some of them can (in theory at least) be activated within 20 to 120 days to provide extra maritime capacity during times of national emergency.

The mothball fleet is a very prominent landmark along this stretch of the San Francisco Bay. But for obvious reasons, it's rather hard to explore without getting very, very wet. And so for many moons Telstar Logistics has wondered what it looks like aboard those many abandoned ships, and in vain. Until now.

Recently, photographer Amy Heiden joined an authorized work party that visited Suisun Bay, and she returned home with many superb photos of the mysteries that lie within the heart of the ghost fleet. Don't miss all her photos taken from the fleet. 

Amy Heiden: Mothball Fleet

Planespotter: An Aviation Mystery in Hanoi

Photo by Reid Yalom

Earlier this week, shutterbug Reid Yalom contacted Telstar Logistics to seek help identifying an unusual aircraft he photographed (shown above) during a recent trip to Hanoi, Vietnam.

Frankly, we were stumped. Yet several things about the aircraft's configuration seemed noteworthy: A single, nose-mounted engine, the biplane wing, and a large passenger cabin. Yalom suspected the plane might be French. "No idea," we replied, adding that "it might be Russian or Chinese."

Turns out, we were in the ballpark. Telstar Logistics Senior Taxonomist Fred Sharples quickly came though with information about the aircraft, positively identifying it as a Russian-designed Antonov AN-2.

Photo from Wikipedia Commons

Intended for use as an agricultural and forestry transport, the AN-2 was first flown in 1947. Tens of thousands of AN-2s were built before assembly lines shut down in 1991 -- a long production run exceeded only by the Lockheed C-130 Hercules.

We found this informative ode to the AN-2 at thingummybob.com:

Used as a troop carrier, paratrooper-dropper-offer, transport, passenger airliner, air ambulance, surveyor, spotter, agricultural sprayer/duster, the list goes on...The Vietnamese even tried (without much success) to use in the war, armed to the teeth, but I think it’s so large and flew so slowly that you could probably down it with a few well-aimed rocks thrown at the engine!

But what an ugly beauty! Stall speed is not mentioned anywhere, in fact you can put it down safely even without the engine at a very sedately 25 knots, with all the flaps and ailerons (yes, you can extend the ailerons as added flaps!!!) down, on both upper and lower wings, of course (the leading-edge slats are automatic...)!

Massive power, fantastic sound (er noise!), flies on its own in a straight line (but requires some ‘extra’ effort for anything other than a shallow turn) and aerodynamically as efficient as a brick shit-house underwater, you just have to love it! It will get you and all your kit into or out of anywhere on land or sea (yes, there is a floatplane and , of course, ski version) in any temperature with no bother (below 15,000 feet), no runway and no hurry. Seats up to twelve people in the passenger configuration, they even made them in a luxury VIP version. ‘Nuff said.

 

Photos from Wikipedia Commons

On Air Freight and Old IBM Hard Disk Drives

This photo has been floating around the Interwebs for a few years, but it's new to us, so perhaps it's new to you as well. Since the image involves both an old Pan American Airways plane and a big piece of hardware, it piqued our curiosity.

As the much-forwarded email we received yesterday asked, "Can you guess what they are loading into the aircraft?"

The answer:

It's a hard disk drive back in 1956... with 5 MB of storage.

In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first 'SUPER' computer with a hard disk drive (HDD).  The HDD weighed over a ton and stored a 'whopping' 5 MB of data.

Do you appreciate your 8 GB memory stick now?

Now, Telstar Logistics has been around the Internet for many moons, so at first we were reluctant to take this story at face value. That's why we fired up our Google terminal, and dove into the case. Much to our pleasant surprise, it seems the tale is true. According to Hoax Slayer:

The photograph is genuine, and the information in the message is factual. Another photograph of one of the disk storage units can be viewed on IBM's archives website, along with the following caption:

The IBM 350 Disk Storage Unit was rolled out in 1956 to be used with the IBM 305 RAMAC to provide storage capacities of five, 10, 15 or 20 million characters. It was configured with 50 magnetic disks containing 50,000 sectors, each of which held 100 alphanumeric characters.

Here's a closeup of the 350 Disk Storage Unit:

 

The Wikipedia provides some additional verification...

The IBM 350 was part of the IBM RAMAC 305, the computer that introduced disk storage technology to the world. IBM publicly announced the IBM 350 storage unit as a component of the RAMAC 305 and RAM 650 computer systems on September 13, 1956.RAMAC stood for "Random Access Method of Accounting and Control."

Its design was motivated by the need for real time accounting in business. The 350 stored 5 million 7-bit (6-bits plus 1 odd parity bit) characters (about 4.4 megabyte). It had fifty 24-inch (610 mm) diameter disks with 100 recording surfaces. Each surface had 100 tracks. The disks spun at 1200 RPM. Data transfer rate was 8,800 characters per second. Two independent access arms moved up and down to select a disk and in and out to select a recording track, all under servo control. A third arm was added as an option. Several improved models were added in the 1950s. The IBM RAMAC 305 system with 350 disk storage leased for $3,200 per month. [...]

Currie Munce, research vice president for Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (which has acquired IBM's storage business), stated in a Wall Street Journal interview^[6] that the RAMAC unit weighed over a ton, had to be moved around with forklifts, and was delivered via large cargo airplanes. According to Munce, the storage capacity of the drive could have been increased beyond five megabytes, but IBM's marketing department at that time was against a larger capacity drive, because they didn't know how to sell a product with more storage.

All of which is to say... yes, you really should think of this photo next time you stick a USB flash drive into your pocket!

The Joy of Space Travel at SFO

 

Telstar Logistics flew to Chicago this week to meet with a new client, but as we were departing from San Francisco International Airport we took note of yet another superb museum display curated by the airport's museum staff. We've written about them before, so as you may recall: SFO is not just a transportation hub — the airport is also a fully accredited museum, which helps explain why the displays there are so consistently excellent.

The show currently on display in the United Airlines concourse at Terminal 3 is called Out of this World! The Twentieth-Century Space Invasion of American Pop Culture. As the exhibit summary explains:

From elaborate toy play sets and space operas of the 1930s and 1940s, to robots and rocket ships of the space age and beyond, each generation presented its own notions about what the future would bring, both here on Earth and in the mysterious worlds beyond our atmosphere. The artifacts exhibited in Out of this World! The Twentieth-Century Space Invasion of American Pop Culture are reminders of a period when our collective infatuation with space resulted in products that ranged from fantastically silly to truly visionary, objects that may have inspired the conquest of space as much as they reflected it.

Count us among the infatuated. The show is up through through March 2009 (we think), so if you happen to find yourself flying United in or out of SFO, take a few minutes and enjoy a little bit of retro-futuristic space appreciation. It's worth the trip.

LINKS:
Out of this World! The Twentieth-Century Space Invasion of American Pop Culture (Official exhibition page)

Out of this World exhibition brochure (Downloadable pdf file)

PREVIOUSLY:
Backstage at the San Francisco Airport Museum

RIP: Ed Grothus, Creator of the Post-Apocalyptic "Black Hole" Surplus Store

Sad news: Ed Grothus, founder and proprietor of the post-apocalyptic surplus store the "Black Hole," has passed away at age 86.

Telstar Logistics toured the Black Hole in Los Alamos, New Mexico during 2006, and we're grateful we had the chance to meet Ed during our visit. To give you a sense of what the Black Hole was all about, here are a few photos we took while wandering the aisles:

This is how we described our meeting with Ed:

Ed is a former employee of the Los Alamos National Laboratory -- America's R&D facility for nuclear weapons -- and The Black Hole is his masterpiece; an improbable combination military surplus outlet, pacifist shrine, and "museum of nuclear waste."

Ed was on hand when we stopped by, so we had the opportunity to talk with him and watch his presentation on the perils of atomic warfare.  Though he's clearly spent a lot of time in the desert sun, he's a very likable character -- articulate, thoughtful, and passionate about his cause.

This most remarkable and unusual gentleman is gone, but not forgotten.

LINKS:
The Black Hole of Los Alamos (photos by Telstar Logistics)

Ed Grothus (Wikipedia entry)

Ed Grothus and the Doomsday Stones (Esquire magazine, March 20060

PREVIOUSLY:
Ed Grothus and the Black Hole of Los Alamos

(IMAGES: All photos by Telstar Logistics)

For Sale: One Aerocar; Half Car, Half Airplane

Speaking of strange hybrids... ever heard of the Taylor Aerocar?  We were fascinated by them during our early years.  Built by an American entrepreneur named Moult Taylor after World War II, the Aerocar was a road-ready automobile that could be converted into an airworthy airplane by attaching a set of wings. The Wikipedia sketches out the rest of the tale:

Taylor's design of a roadable aircraft dates back to 1946. During a trip to Delaware, he met inventor Robert E. Fulton, Jr., who had designed an earlier roadable airplane, the Airphibian. Taylor recognized that the detachable wings of Fulton’s design would be better replaced by folding wings. His prototype Aerocar utilized folding wings that allowed the road vehicle to be convertible into flight mode in five minutes by one person. When the rear licence plate was flipped up, the operator could connect the propeller shaft and attach a pusher propeller. The same engine drives the front wheels through a three-speed manual transmission. When operated as an aircraft, the road transmission is simply left in neutral (though backing up during taxiing is possible by using reverse gear.) On the road, the wings and tail unit were designed to be towed behind the vehicle. Aerocars can drive up to 60 miles per hour and have a top airspeed of 110 miles per hour.

Civil certification was gained in 1956, and Taylor reached a deal with Ling-Temco-Vought for serial production on the proviso that he was able to attract 500 orders. When he was able to only find half that number of buyers, plans for production ended, and only six examples were built.

As one might expect, the engineering compromises required to create a car that could fly and a plane that could drive meant that Aerocars suffered from a variation of the Mermaid Problem — that is, with a mermaid, when you want a fish you get a woman, and when you want a woman you get a fish. Awwwwkward.

Much like mermaids, Aerocars may not be practical, but they continue to fascinate. The second of the six Aerocars, tail number N103D, built in 1956, is now for sale, and via eBay, no less. Fidel Castro's brother Raúl once flew this vehicle around Cuba, and it later logged more than 1000 hours in the air doing traffic reports for KISN above Portland, Oregon. The bidding on eBay starts at $3.5 million, and the buyer is responsible for transporting the vehicle from Grand Junction, Colorado.  Fly or drive — it's your choice.

(Tip of the flight cap to Dr. MOZ)

LINKS:
Aerocar N103D Flying Plane Car Single Engine Auto Fly (eBay Auction listing, expires 16 December, 2008)

This excellent newsreel from the early 1950s shows an Aerocar taking off from San Francisco International Airport:

This contemporary video has a Spanish narration, but it shows Aerocar No. 4 on the road, transitioning for flight, and in the air:

PREVIOUSLY:

It's an Amphicar! It's an Amphicar!

An Amphicar Sighting in New Jersey

(IMAGES: Photos of N103D from aerocarforsale.com)