Railfanning Stockton (San Joaquin Street) - 4/13/18

In continuation of my railfanning trip to Stockton on Friday the 13th, I headed over to the Stockton - San Joaquin Street Station after railfanning at the Downtown / ACE Station earlier that morning. The San Joaquin Street Station is one of the two train stations that serve the city of Stockton and is the busier of the two, with all Amtrak train stops running the San Joaquin from Oakland to Bakersfield. The station is also a major Amtrak Thruway Bus transfer point for passengers to and from the Sacramento and further northern regions of California during times of limited train service. The station is situated along BNSF’s Stockton Subdivision where all trains passing through here are heading for either the Bay Area or Southern California. Union Pacific’s Fresno Subdivision also crosses over this line at the railroad diamonds just a bit east of the station. This location however is extremely sketchy as it is located in the poorer regions of Stockton. Although the station still retains the original Santa Fe Depot, the station itself has barred windows around the entire exterior, further illustrating the poverty in this area in comparison to the drastically nicer Downtown / ACE Station. The station is not too bad during the day as there is a lot of pedestrian traffic, however extreme caution is still advised in this area. Although the area is sketchy and that this station saw much less traffic on this day versus the Downtown / ACE Station (UP Fresno Sub), it is still a rather “interesting” place to railfan.
Train 1 : Amtrak 710 with NPCU #90218 & F59PHI #2008. Very friendly engineer on 710 !
Train 2 : BNSF L-CAL1031-13I (Port Job) with GP60 #180 & GP60M #138. This local will continue towards the Port of Stockton area and interchange cars at the nearby rail yard. After an hour, the local will return toward the station with GP60M #138 leading & GP60 #138 trailing. It will hold out at the station until a UP intermodal crosses and clears the diamonds, then proceed back to the BNSF Stockton Terminal Yard.
Train 3 : Amtrak 712 with CabCar #6965 & F59PHI #2010. Nice horn action departing the station !
Train 4 : Amtrak 713 with F59PHI #2004 & CabCar #6962. Some loud horn action departing Stockton.
Train 5 : BNSF S-ALTOIG1-12A with ES44DC #7811 & #7285. This train appeared shortly after Amtrak 713 departed, following close behind. After this train, I called it a day, grabbed some lunch, and headed home after a personally successful morning of railfanning !
Thanks for Watching !