Santa Fe Depot - Calwa, California
N 36° 42.206 W 119° 45.576
11S E 253483 N 4065523
According to "Valley Division Vignettes", the Calwa depot was built when the main line was rerouted to the north side of the yard in 1922. The building was occupied on December 19, 1922, as reported in an article about the depot in the Fresno Bee shortly afterwards.
Waymark Code: WM5DQ5
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 12/23/2008
Published By:
PFF
Views: 16
Caution: the depot is today an active BNSF Railway yard office adjacent to busy railroad tracks. Any visit to this building or any railroad property must only be done after receiving permission from the railroad company. Under no circumstances should you enter onto the trackway unless accompanied by the appropriate railroad employee. The single-story frame depot is located just south of the Jensen Street overpass.
From the website Trainorders.com, as written by John Sweetser on March 2, 2006 (
visit link)
According to "Valley Division Vignettes", the Calwa depot was built when the main line was rerouted to the north side of the yard in 1922. The building was occupied on December 19, 1922, as reported in an article about the depot in the Fresno Bee shortly afterwards.
The Calwa yard has had only one roundhouse, which was built with 15 stalls in 1912 (the Barstow roundhouse, also built in 1912, had the same design). The previous roundhouse for Fresno was a six-stall brick one in the old Santa Fe downtown yard and was originally built by the San Francisco & San Joaquin Valley Railway. The only known photo of the downtown Fresno roundhouse can be found on page 16 of "Valley Division Vignettes" (I believe this book is still available at the California State Railroad Museum book store in Sacramento).
From the same website, Dan Bowen had this to say on February 1, 2003 -
… The depot is still there and very active as Calwa is a crew change point. The area around the Calwa depot has gone down the tubes and, unfortunately, the depot and parking area around it are surrounded with chain link fence with barbed wire on top. So it's not easy to photograph there.