The Bee's big cover story on the railyards and the plans that are about to be approved reminded me of an afternoon a couple of months ago when three friends and I rode our bikes over the railroad tracks at the Amtrak station and right out into the railyard that is the subject of so many dreams these days.
And it reminded me that, as all this stuff is built in downtown, other stuff is being changed forever. I'm all for shops and restaurants and refurbished buildings that the public can use, but I for one will miss the ghostly old shops with their clouded windows and rusting old hulks of locomotives. So, here are a few pictures I shot, back before bloggingthegrid even existed. Yes, children, there was such a time...
Here's the downtown from the shops...you could be standing here shopping, and not even SEE downtown from here. Or the place could feature views of downtown. In any case, it's not going to look like this... 
This is a shot between the shops. It'd be nice if they can keep some of the rustic, industrial surface of the old tracks between the shops, but it could be an insurance nightmare. 
And finally, the big boys, the beasts for whom it was all built. We actually climbed up inside these things and played engineer for awhile. No one was around, there were no signs or fences keeping us out, and the only signs of life were the scent of quitting time ganga wafting from one of the shops. Perhaps THAT is why this whole thing is going so slowly... 
6 comments:
The transfer table, ideally, will continue to be a transfer table: the idea in the previous deal with Millenia (and inherited by Thomas, then disavowed) was to trade the westernmost two Shops buildings (the boiler shop and erecting shop) and turntable for the chunk of land owned by State Parks. The transfer table you shot a photo of is functional, a recent re-creation of the transfer table that Union Pacific scrapped. It is currently used to move equipment between the Boiler Shop and Erecting Shop, the same role it played when the Shops were in full swing, but in this case for CSRM's restoration and railroad equipment maintenance operations.
It was built, at a cost of approximately $500,000 plus labor (all volunteer) on the promise that CSRM would be able to turn these shops into the new Railroad Technology Museum.
Of course, now Thomas has claimed that the land doesn't actually belong to the state, doesn't want any mention of specific rail easements in the planning documents, and instead of a land swap they want State Parks to pay prices for the land equivalent to land entitled for high-rises.
Yeah, build a highrise :)
It's Thomas property berg, he paid for it with millions of his own dollars, get over it wberg.
4th & T: Well then, let him develop it with millions of his own dollars, instead of $750 million (about ten times what the railyards cost to buy from UP) from state and city funds. Thomas isn't paying for the land cleanup either: the insurance company they and UP agreed on is funding that, with some federal toxic remediation dollars.
And the issue of whether it is Thomas' property has already been called into question. One might also question the wisdom of trying to steal property from the state while simultaneously asking them for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Wannabee berg, your pathetic complaining gives preservationist like your self even more of a bad name.
Of course the insurance companies are picking up the bill to clean up the toxic yard, would you buy a house that was a toxic dump with out insuring that the previous owners clean it up first?
Your such a NIMBY!
LOL :-)
4th&T: Wow, dropping the N-word already? And all I did was question the folks who say "they spent the money, they should have control" when the developer wants the public to chip in the vast majority of the project's cost, while simultaneously making an attempt to steal land own by the same people he's trying to borrow from.
Speaking of things they haven't paid for, I wonder if Thomas is planning on repaying any of the $55 million the city of Sacramento put in for the land transfer, especially considering the land they're getting (the depot and vicinity) was assessed as being worth $5 million.
wberg, you did not fair well as a SSP forumer,(it was fun to watch you get put in your place over and over again) so it might be best if you now put your tail between your legs and hide in you sheltered preservationist world like you have before.
Your great at twisting fasts to meet your goals of slowing city progress, it's a good thing the folk downtown don't take you seriously, kinda like what happen to you on Tuesday night.
LOL :-)
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