I love anything Fageol, that highly creative West Coast outfit. This is one of their later trucks, after the time the Fageol brothers had moved on with their Twin Coaches and such. And Fageol Trucks would soon morph into Peterbilt. This is an interesting shot, as it appears to likely be taken after the war. The size of the rig is impressive. But the thing that sucked me in is that tow bar attached to the front. I assume that’s what it is, so that it could flat-towed, possibly by another truck of the Oregon California Fast Freight Company.
Like it says on the packing crate: FAGEOL! USE NO HOOKS!
Funny, and fitting.
I wonder if guys used “Fragile” as a nickname for the trucks? I’d bet they did.
Note that the tracks on the overpass have high voltage overhead catenary. Both the Milwaukee Road (to Tacoma) and Great Northern (to Seattle) used GE electric boxcab locomotives to haul steam trains through mountains and tunnels in central Washington. Electrification was removed with the switch to diesel locomotives.
Thanks for that info Marc. I was going to ask about that. I honestly thought that only the Northeast Corridor (the old Pennsylvania RR and what it became) was the only electrified RR in the US.
Of course my railroad knowledge is kinda limited to what I grew up with as a kid here on the Eastern Seaboard, so there’s that.
I’ve actually learned more in recent years by coming here to CC and reading the fine articles written by railroad enthusiasts like Big Paws and our founder Paul.
The coal-hauling Virginian Railway electrified 124 miles of mountainous line west of Roanoke VA in 1925. It was the longest electrified mountain railroad in the East. VGN merged into the parallel Norfolk and Western, which also had a stretch of electrified railroad, in 1959. N&W shut down the electrification in 1962 and VGN’s nearly new electric locomotives were sold to the New Haven and Pennsylvania Railroads.
I’d recommend a subscription to Classic Trains magazine, published by Kalmbach to help fill out your railroad history knowledge.
Could that photo be taken in San Francisco? The business in the background is Victor Equipment, which could be the Victor gas welding torch company which started in SF. And maybe, just maybe, the partially obscured sign behind the second trailer reads Oakland and perhaps even Toll Entrance, which seems like a reasonable sign before entering the Bay Bridge eastbound. FYI well into my lifetime the bridge was two-way on both levels, no trucks on the upper level. However the upper level did have tracks for the Key interurban railway, which did use overhead catenary wires everywhere except the Bridge, where there was a third rail.
Great detective work!
I wondered if the Victor plant could crack the location. Good job.
On the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the interurban railroad tracks were on the LOWER level. They were used by the Key System until 1958, and the Interurban Electric Railway until 1941.
Thanks for the correction, you’re right. I was alive when the tracks were torn out, but way too young to remember them. But I do remember always clamoring for my parents to drive on the lower level, with the trucks. I mean, what kid wants to see a world-famous view of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate, when you can be stuck in the tunnel with nosy, stinky trucks? Maybe there were still a few Fageols on the road in those days.
I forgot about the third railroad that used the tracks on the lower deck of the Bay Bridge: Sacramento Northern, which operated on a route of over 180 miles between San Francisco and Chico, in the Sacramento Valley. It ended all passenger service in 1941, and as a freight railroad could not use the Bay Bridge trackage.
Interurban Electric Railroad and Sacramento Northern were subsidiaries of large freight railroads: IER was owned by Southern Pacific, SN by Western Pacific.
From 1941 to 1958, only the Key System, an East Bay interurban and street railroad, used the tracks on the Bay Bridge and the Transbay Transit Terminal.
In the late 1950s, our Dad “mistakenly” drove onto the “Trucks and Buses Only” ramp to the lower deck of the bridge. It would be the only time I was down there, before the reconfiguration of the bridge to one-way upper and lower decks for all auto traffic; and no trains.
Here is a photo of the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. The curve places it on the cantilever/truss portion of the bridge, between Yerba Buena Island and Oakland.
I think I’ve cracked it.
Definitely the same kind of catenary supports that the Key System used on the Bay Bridge.
Based on the 3 tracks on the bridge it is most likely the stretch between the bridge itself and the terminal loop in San Francisco which crossed over Harrison & Folsom streets between 1st & 2nd st.
The curve of the railroad wires seems to fit Harrison better.
Finally I found a 1940 SF city directory online & looked up Harrison st. One of the businesses at 515 Harrison is Victor Equipment.
So, I’m pretty sure the truck is southbound on Harrison just north of 2nd st in San Francisco.