Progress on San Carlos Street

J.S. Roberts, 1934

The San Carlos Street viaduct is one of the key scenes for the Vasona Branch. The SP paid for the viaduct in the early 1930's as a last step before main line tracks could be removed from Fourth Street and the business district of San Jose. The viaduct jumps over the former South Pacific Coast tracks heading towards Campbell and Los Gatos, but, more importantly, it provided space for the new mainline tracks to head under the viaduct and around town.

As a model, the viaduct's important; it's a well-known location around these parts, it adds interest to a boring turn, separates the West San Jose and Auzerais Street scenes, and has the potential to add clutter and action. Sadly, the area's not gotten much love; I've been collecting photos and ideas for reworking this area, and I've been building a new version of the packing house just under the viaduct, but I'm finally getting some modeling done.

Here's photos of the scene after a busy week. The packing house is in place (with some resin-cast prune boxes on the platform). The sweet looking CalPak sign text is a guess, but there's a sign with similar outlines from the back in one of the photographs of the area. The bridge supports almost match the actual bridge - a mix of two-legged piers (for piers that weren't liable to be damaged), partial walls (near railroad tracks), and full walls (for the Dupont Street underpass I'm not modeling).

The storm drain pipe with water was an afterthought, and a nice way to quickly add a bit of interest and action to the scene.

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John S. Roberts photo taken from a John C. Gordon photo in the San Jose State University special collection.