A Brief Overview of the Modern Parr Terminal

For those unfamiliar with the operations of the Richmond Pacific Railroad, the San Francisco Bay Area shortline switches several industries in the city of Richmond, including the Levin-Richmond Terminal, a loading facility for shipping exports across the Pacific. The railroad interchanges with the Union Pacific with a connection to the Cal-P subdivision at the Stege Wye and the BNSF at their Richmond Yard facility. The Levin-Richmond Terminal (LRTC or LRT) Area will become the primary focus of my layout. In the following map this area is shown in the outlined region with a corresponding detail map at the upper right hand corner.

LRTC Area Map (Image source: LRTC)

There are several unique modeling opportunities in this area. The first area is adjacent to the Parr Canal, a small channel that runs perpendicular to Wright Avenue, between the LRT and Harbor Way. Along this channel there is a runaround track and two industries: Amtecol and California Oils. Amtecol is a long warehouse building that manufacturers and packages automotive lubricants. California Oils, or CalOils, is a refinery that produces vegetable oils with several spots for loading tank cars as well as a scale track. There is a small yard with two storage tracks just west of this location, encased from the Parr Canal by a large wall of shipping containers. This section of the area is a great spot for photos from Wright avenue with a view looking towards San Francisco and two large cranes belonging to the Port of Richmond.

Industries and runaround track adjacent to the Parr Canal

The railroad also features "street running" on Wright Avenue, where the trains run adjacent to road traffic with tracks embedded into the asphalt. Along this section of the railroad there is the Cemex cement terminal, which unloads the contents of cement hoppers into trucks for distribution. Beyond Wright Avenue, the LRT runs alongside the Richmond Inner Harbor adjacent to 4th Street, where ships are loaded with exports by the historic cranes of the LRT.

Cemex Cement Terminal on Wright Avenue

The Levin-Terminal offices are opposite cement facility on Wright Avenue. Many times RPRC locomotives will be staged on Wright Avenue while crews gather paperwork from the offices. This makes a great place for an operation session to begin, simulating the start of a job on the line.

Locomotives often "spotted" opposite LRTC offices

Heading back east toward the Parr Yard the railroad crosses Wright Avenue heading north into Sims Junction. Sims Junction is next to a Sims Metals, a scrap metal and recycling facility. There is also a connection point to the BNSF interchange at the junction.

Sims Junction and Sims Metals

While there are many other industries the Richmond Pacific Railroad facilitates in Richmond, I chose to omit all other areas due to space considerations in the layout planning. In the next post, I will outline how to realistically incorporate these areas into the design and track plan.