I will have a small chunk of free time on a trip to San Francisco at the end of the month, and would like to get a look at the street-running in Oakland’s Jack London Square.
Does anyone know whether there would be much possibility of activity there on a Sunday morning? Can’t seem to find much useful info googling, so any help would be appreciated.
While definitely not a “regular” at Jack London, I have family out there and visit the area every once and a while. The last time I was out there (June of 2007) was the first time I visited Jack London, and I liked it. It was a neat place to catch trains, and the street running was cool.
Based upon my experience, it seemed trains were pretty frequent (average of 3-4 an hour, though sometimes more, sometimes less). I don’t know that there’s any way to predict freight traffic, but there are schedules out there for Amtrak California and regular Amtrak trains that travel through Jack London. Since there is a station there as well you can get schedules for when trains should pass through the area. When I was there I picked up a schedule at the depot, but there is also a schedule available on line at Amtrak’s website for trains that pass through the area:
http://www.amtrak.com/timetable/oct08/W34.pdf
What I did was “build my trip” around when there would be quite a few passenger trains, and then hoped that there would be a few freights thrown in as well. I prefer freights to passenger, but I figured I’d take what I could get. Looking at the schedule it appears there would be at least a few trains both east and west on a Sunday morning for you to catch, though obviously the “busy” time is going to be rush hour on week days.
For me it worked out pretty well, and I caught a few passenger trains as I expected plus a few freights, including a passenger train passing a freight. (I was there in the afternoon, but photos are here if you’re curious).
Good luck with your trip! I can’t wait to make another trip out that way, as there are a number of neat railfanning spots near Oakland that I want to get back to.
Great information, Noah. Thanks very much from a fellow Cheddarhead!