Thursday, January 28, 2010

Port Costa & Benicia rail yards

From: lambsydivy@juno.com

... My husband's grandfather, Frank J. Douglas, was yardmaster for several years in the early 1900's at Port Costa. We have visited Port Costa on several occasions; there is basically no rail yard/buildings remaining at Port Costa. We would really like to see any photos of the Port Costa and Benicia rail yards that transferred the freight via the "Solano". I see a lot of photos of the Solano, but very little of the ports and the port personnel.

We have, in our family archive, three photos of a group of men posed in front of an engine and a small building nearby. There is no identifying information, but we are certain that one of the men was Frank J. Douglas. The family story is that Frank was one of the youngest men ever to attain yard master status. He apparently trained at Denison, TX.

—Bobette Doulas

DRUM, Rail Road Photo Car

From: "Leah Olson" leaholson525@yahoo.com

I enjoyed browsing your site today...especially the old pictures. I have a question, my father has an old family photograph. The bottom says DRUM, Rail Road Photo Car ... it's printed on stiff card stock type paper. Can you tell me how I can know which rail road car this picture came from? It's of two men ... unfortunately, we don't know who ... we believe it's our Hutcheson family who went through Iowa and into Kansas.

—Leah Olson, Aiken, South Carolina