In my travels this weekend I found the scene below. Just for fun I will let someone else figure out the location. There's lots of rr action around me but I haven't been able to photograph it.
So the large gauge rails must have been for a crane. The small turn tables are really cool feature I had never seen before.
So everyone be safe and have a great weekend!
As Melgar says above it is USS Hornet CVS-12. She is moored at the at the former Naval Air Station (NAS) Alameda, CA. She is a completely restored museum ship. NAS Alameda is directly across the bay from San Francisco. San Francisco can be clearly seen from the flight deck.
USS Hornet (CVS-12) was named for USS Hornet (CV-8) that was lost to the Japanese at the battle of Santa Cruz during the desperate struggle to hold Guadalcanal.
CV-8 was the Hornet that carried the Doolittle Raiders from NAS Alameda in April 1942 to a launch point 600 miles east of Japan. The Raiders bombed Tokyo and other Japanese cities. The movie, "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" depicts this extraordinary mission. CV-8 fought at Midway where her air group participated in decisively defeating the Japanese fleet. The other two US carriers at Midway were Enterprise and Yorktown. Yorktown was sunk by the Japanese. Four Japanese fleet carriers were sunk at Midway and the Japanese attack was defeated.
USS Hornet (CVS-12) was in continuous combat throughout the last half of WWII. The ship, her crew, and air groups earned 11 battle stars. Following the war, the ship got an angled flight deck, an enclosed bow as shown in the photo, and was converted from an attack aircraft carrier (CV) to an anti-submarine carrier (CVS). CVS-12 was the ship that picked up the Apollo 11 astronauts following the first moon landing. There is an excellent museum about the Apollo program aboard.
There is an outstanding air museum about one mile from the Hornet for people interested in aviation history. In the 1920s and 1930s Alameda was the terminal for the famous Pan American Clippers. Many aviation firsts happened in and near Alameda.
Alameda also has several firsts in railroad history. It was the first terminal for the transcontinental railroad. The terminal pier, built by the Central Pacific Railroad shortly after the transcontinental was completed, was less than a mile from where the USS Hornet is located.
I live just 5 miles from USS Hornet at the opposite end of Alameda Island. The tracks that are shown in the photos were for the large self-propelled cranes that serviced the carriers and other ships home-ported at Alameda. The cranes were used to hoist supplies and airplanes on and off aircraft carriers.
Finally, the Alameda High School sports teams are named the Hornets. The former Alameda Naval Air Station is being rebuilt as housing, light industry such as wineries and breweries, and as a nature preserve. A large VA medical facility is also being built. NH Joe
Great posts by everyone so far today
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