A note on the plastic cover of today's photograph reads, "Who am I?" The question was penned by Los Gatan Scott Rose, who loaned us the print, which shows a delighted young "engineer" at the throttle of one of Billy Jones' steam engines running through his prune orchard at the northwest corner of N. Santa Cruz and Daves avenues.
The first name that came to mind was that of Jack Vodden, whose boyhood home on University Avenue bordered the Southern Pacific right of way during the heavy traffic days.
Over a cup of coffee at Le Boulanger, at Main and Montebello Way--site of the old post office--Jack took one look at the photo and said, "That's my brother, Neil." Their father, John Vodden, delivered Railway Express by truck for many years and was in and out of the post office with its side door a few steps from the railroad station.
The Vodden home on University Avenue, opposite today's Central Fire District Station, backed up to the SP right of way, and Neil and Jack hung over the back fence to observe the many trains that passed daily.
Neil, now living in Scotts Valley, for many years was a fireman on the Daylight on the Central Division (San Jose to San Luis Obispo). He dismounted in San Luis Obispo and, later in the day, came back to San Jose as a passenger on a Los Angeles-to-San Francisco train.
Jack Vodden recalled the SP spur--not far from his home--that crossed University Avenue and Los Gatos Creek to service Forbes Mill. Jack's memory went back to the Mexican rail hands who lived in boxcars on a siding near the Vodden home and their pleasant guitar music.
The Vodden brothers picked prunes at the Billy Jones orchard railroad and at other orchards. If the crops were late the fall opening of school was delayed until the fruit was picked.
World War II found Jack Vodden serving the U.S. Army as an anti-aircraft gunner on the Channel coast of England. Then it was shooting down German aircraft on the mainland in the final push and meeting Russian troops who had pressed through Germany from the east.
At home after the war, Jack worked for 16 years at Sterling Lumber Company, site of Old Town's parking lot, before becoming an owner of El Gato Building Materials Inc., which was located on University Avenue at the site of the Puccinelli Dehydrator Plant.
The Planning Commission recently denied Tom Albanese's application to build a bocce ball court at that location.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, January 31, 1996.
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