EXPLORATION QUICKIE: abandoned southern pacific winters branch

Driving home from the Bay Area up Interstate 505 (the “Winters Cut-off), I jumped off the highway at the Midway Road exit just north of the Nut Tree Airport to look for remnants of the Southern Pacific Clear Lake/ Winters Branch along the modern interstate.

I vaguely remember seeing rail cars along the interstate’s predecessor 2 lane highway as our family travelled back and forth between the Bay Area and Siskiyou County in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I rediscovered the railroad branch while looking at old topographic maps of the area recently.

USGS 1953 Allendale, CA topographic map, photorevised 1973

The above topo map shows the railroad running between Hartley Road and the under construction Interstate 505. I explored the stretch between the two arrows, heading north from Midway Road to Allendale Road.

Google Maps of the same area
Looking south across Midway Road, from the northeastern corner of Midway Road and Hartley Road.

Starting from Midway and Hartley Roads, the railbed would have come through the middle of the warehouse shown in the above picture. (7 January 2021 update: It should be noted that a brand new warehouse has been constructed on the land in the above photo)

Looking north from the northeast corner of Midway and Hartley Roads at the path of the railbed.

Also at this corner is found a USGS benchmark with its associated witness post, monumented in 1904 (Solano County B 44, PID JS1521).

Along this stretch of the abandoned railbed, a number of small drainages are crossed. Below is one the the concrete culverts used to cross these.

Looking east from Hartley Road. Interstate 505 is in the background.
Top view, looking north.
East side of culvert.

At Hartley and Allendale Roads, we look back south in the next photo, the the raised railbed to the left in the image.

My quick exploration ends at Allendale Road. The next stretch of railbed is now private property across the road.

The railbed heads north towards Winters through the center of the photo.

REFERENCES

Vaca Valley and Clear Lake Railroad – Wikipedia