Santa Clara Tower
Santa Clara, Santa Clara County, California
Marker Inscription
Santa Clara Tower Dedicated to service and safety The Santa Clara Tower, built by the Southern Pacific Railroad, went into service in 1927. Located at the junction of the Coast and Western Divi- sions, the tower controller signals and switches at the north end of the Newhall Yard. Historic passenger trains such as the Coast Daylight operat- ed through this junction. The railroad yard played a key role in the creation and operation of high priority freight trains. The tower was equipped with a 48 lever General Railway and Signal Model 2 Electric Interlocking Machine. The design of this equipment prevented an unsafe route from being set by an operator. The tower and adjacent structures have been restored by the South Bay Historical Railroad Society. This site commemorates all of the dedicated and hardwork- ing men and women of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Placed by order of the Santa Clara City Council October 12, 2002
Erected by Santa Clara City Council
The Story
Opened by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1927, the Santa Clara Tower stood at the busy junction of the Coast and Western Divisions, its operators throwing switches and signals to guide trains in and out of the Newhall Yard. From here, storied passenger trains like the Coast Daylight rolled past, and high-priority freight was marshaled for the road. A 48-lever electric interlocking machine let a single operator route traffic safely through the crossing.
Why it matters
The tower is a monument to the human labor and ingenuity behind American railroading, when signal operators kept the arteries of national commerce moving safely.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Santa Clara Interlocking Control Tower
Santa Clara, CA · est. 2013
Built in 1926, this control tower governed one of California's key rail junctions around the clock until 1993, one of only two Harriman Standard No. 4 towers in the state. Its upstairs interlocking machine coordinated switches and signals where lines from San Francisco and Oakland converged. When the line's control passed to a computer at the San Jose Depot in 1993, sixty-five years of hands-on operation came to a close.
Santa Clara Interlocking Tower
Santa Clara, CA
Built in 1926, the Santa Clara Interlocking Control Tower directed rail traffic around the clock until 1993 — one of only two Harriman Standard No. 4 towers in California. From this tower, operators worked the mechanical interlocking machinery that kept trains moving safely through a busy junction. It stands as a rare survivor of the golden age of American railroading.
Pulgas Water Temple
San Mateo County, CA
This elegant Greco-Roman temple on the San Francisco Peninsula celebrates one of the great feats of early-20th-century engineering: the arrival of Sierra snowmelt, carried across California by the Hetch Hetchy system, to slake the thirst of the growing Bay Area. The Isaiah verse carved here — of rivers given "in the desert" — casts the aqueduct's completion as an almost biblical delivery of water to a dry land. For decades the flow surfaced dramatically at this very spot.
Whaling Out of San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
By the late nineteenth century, San Francisco had become a major whaling port even as the industry grew ever more perilous. With whale populations dwindling, crews had to sail farther into the frigid Arctic and stay at sea longer, risking ice and isolation in pursuit of oil and baleen. The city's wharves outfitted and sheltered this hard, fading trade.