Kudos to Guy Span

Dear Editor: 
I enjoy reading the articles by Guy Span in Bay Crossings. Even though I live in San Francisco and have very little occasion to ride the ferries, I’m very interested in expansion of water transit options.
I am a member of a committee that has been formed to rehabilitate the Santa Fe Pier. This is the old railroad pier that was used to transport freight rail cars between San Francisco and Richmond until (we think) sometime in the 1970s. Mr. Span seems to be extremely knowledgeable about ferries and railroads; I hope he might tell us more about the history of the Pier.

We’re hoping to adaptively reuse the Pier both as a breakwater for the ONLY public boat launch ramp in San Francisco, and also for publicly accessible open space--fishing, boat docking, etc. We know we’ll have to raise quite a bit of money, and we thought that knowing the history of the Pier would be helpful in fund raising and increasing interest in the project.
We will appreciate any help you can give us in this regard.
Sincerely yours,
Corinne Woods
Save The Santa Fe Pier
c/o Bay View Boat Club
489 China Basin Street
San Francisco, CA  94107

Dear Editor,
I greatly enjoyed Guy Span’s article on the past and present climate of my wonderful company, the Southern Pacific.  I hired out in Houston with Southern Pacific in 1994 as a switchman and was promoted to engineer in 1999. As the epicenter of “Ground Zero” during the merger meltdown, I became all to familiar with the problems during that time. Since the railroad “fired” me last July, I have had to hear about the present service issues from coworkers. Only last week did I receive correspondence indicating “upon further review” Union Pacific has decided to return me to service. Now I once again get to experience first hand the unique UP way of handling, or in most cases mishandling, pressure situations.
Yours,
Ray Donovan