Santa Clara, California — Santa Clara Tower

The camera belongs to the South Bay Historical Railroad Society, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit incorporated in 1985 whose volunteers, in their own words, "work on the renovation and preservation of the Santa Clara Railroad Depot, the Santa Clara Tower and the two maintenance-of-way buildings" at 1005 Railroad Avenue. The same site houses the Edward Peterman Museum of Railroad History.

The mount is the structure the stream is named for. SBHRS state that "The Santa Clara Interlocking Tower is one of two unmodified Harriman Standard # 4 towers in California and was built in 1926", and that a signal-system change delayed it so that it "was not put into operational service until the fall of 1927". On its upper floor sits "a General Railway Signal Co. Model 2, unit-lever type electro-mechanical interlocking machine", which the Society says "controlled many switches and signals from the north end of the Santa Clara yard to the junction switches and signals controlling the tracks to and from both San Francisco (Peninsula Line) and Oakland (Mulford Line)". After 65 years of continuous service the tower went dark on 17 July 1993, when "control of all switches and signals on the Peninsula line was transferred to the Control Center at the San Jose depot".

The depot in the foreground is older than the tower by six decades. Its historical marker calls it "an original waystation on the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad Line" and "the oldest passenger depot still in use in California"; SBHRS record that "In 1985, the depot was placed on the National Register of Historic Places." The building runs roughly 50 by 225 feet across four sections — former passenger area, original freight house, freight house extension and the former Acme Freight Company office.

Today the junction is worked by Caltrain on the Peninsula Corridor, Amtrak's Capitol Corridor and the Altamont Corridor Express, while Union Pacific freights use the tracks north-east of Track 1. The Society does not publish a train count for the camera, so none is claimed here.