Central Pacific Rail Road built the line along the Bay in the late 1870s, connecting it via ferry at Port Costa with the California Pacific line from Vallejo to Sacramento, giving it a much shorter route than the Altamont Pass route via Stockton.
The Central Pacific first route to the San Francisco bay area was subsidiary Western Pacific(of 1862 not the later WP backed by Jay Gould) .
The California Pacific was built from a ferry landing in Vallejo, Ca north thru American Canyon east to Fairfield thence northeast towards Sacramento. Completing Vallejo to Sacramento in 1870. However not until after the Central Pacific purchased the line was the line built to Benecia some years later.
Another railroad was there first.
Rgds IGN
PS The Central Pacific line was the SP line thru Altamont, currently used by the Pacific Locomotive Associationâs Niles Canyon operation further west.
California Railway or Rail Road. I can find maps with references, but theyâre inconsistent.
There are three class one railroads in the San Francisco bay area. Of these the third did mot start construction until the 20th century, although another railroad of that name was built by and later merged into the first. Neither the first not the third are what I refer to in the original question.
This 1st railroad that built north from the eastshore of San Francisco Bay, built from its landing then turned back southeast. Itâs president had a city named after him.
Rgds IGN
Emeryville was named after Joseph Emery, president of the California and Nevada Railroad, which was started as the California and Mt. Diablo. Built to three foot gauge, the line eventually (1903) became the Santa Feâs entrance into Oakland. It ran through Berkeley a little to the east of SPâs main line. Key Systemâs H line ran alongside for most of the distance from Oakland to Berkeley. Some of the original ROW is next to the BART Richmond line.
California Ry (or Rail Road) was acquired by CP as part of its east bay-hugging route to Port Costa.
The narrow gauge (3ft) California and Nevada did not go to Central Pacific but was bought by another railroad out of bankruptcy in 1902 when that railroad expanded to Oakland. That railroad then converted it to standard gauge in 1903â BART built along the California and Nevada right of way thru El Cerrito in the 60âs while that railroad was still using the line to Oakland.
No not SP. Should be easy now.
Thx IGN
California and Nevadaâs route was acquired by AT&SF. See my earlier answer. The portion north and east of Richmond remain in use by BNSF today.
RCDye your question.
My apoligies missed the Santa Fe portion of your answer. It is an interesting read. I have been catching up on this in the last few days.
When I lived in Berkeley during my high school years I wondered why Santa Fe owned the waterfront. One day I asked the right person and was told the story of the California and Nevada. As I dug into it over the years it was more and more interesting.
I saw the last years of the Santa Feâs Oakland line thru El Cerrito, Albany, and Berkeley. It had grade crossings galore from El Cerrito to Oakland, as well as street running in Oakland. it ran between the street along Sacramento St in Berkeley as well. The biggest problem for Santa Fe was a continous stream of grade crossing accidents by motorists ignoring the train. Art Pipes, who was the engineer the last years thru Berkeley told me that cars would get in front of trains at the rate of 1 or 2 a month. Mostly non injury as he normally kept the speed down to 25 mph. The track speed was 49mph I think. In addition Santa Fe had run several troop trains thru Berkeley during the Vietnam war, and during the anti war protests of the late 60âs and early 70âs.
Researching the line thru Berkeley gave me an appreciation of the history involved. And the various turns.
Thx IGN
So lets go to the midwest for the next question. Between Chicago and another great midwestern metropolis, three different railroads operated streamlined steam locomotives at various times, each with more than one. Two of the railroads had Hudsons with the same engine number. Cities, railroads and common engine number.
Iâll bet a hat the magic number is 4001 (Burlington Goon and C&NW E-4) and from the way the question is worded the third engine class isnât a Hudson (which I think would rule out the obvious answer of Minneapolis/St. Paul - does (do?) the Twin Cities not count as âmidwesternâ?) as the F7s took over from the A class Atlantics in that service.
Actually it was a trick question as there are two correct answers. All three roads operated streamlined Hudsons (well, 4-6-4âs anyway) from Chicago to the Twin Cities, as well as between Chicago and Omaha (unless Omaha isnât midwesternâŚ), though not all at the same time on either route.
C&NWâs E-4s 4001-4008 ended up in Chicago-Omaha service, mostly on secondary trains, fairly quickly, suceeded by 4-8-4s and EMC E3s in Chicago-Twin Cities service.
Burlingtonâs pair of streamlined 4-6-4s (4000 and 4001) were both named Aeolus after the Father of Winds, but were often referred to by Q folks as âBig Alice the Goonâ after a character drawn by Popeyeâs creator E.C. Segar. They operated in both Chicago-Denver (via Omaha) and Chicago-Twin Cities service. On one occasion, just to prove it could be done, one of them operated Denver to Chicago, was quickly turned and sent on to the Twin Cities.
Milwaukeeâs F7s 100-105 (also known as âBalticsââŚ) were used during various periods on the Midwest Hiawatha, especially after the diesels made inroads on the Chicago-Twin Cities trains. Clearly your hat is safe, as 4001 is indeed the magic number. Well done.
I have to say, with great humility, that I completely missed the âBalticâ part â and I definitely should have recognized this.
(As a little peripheral note, a distinction between âBalticâ and âHudsonâ has been made on historical grounds, the former having a pin-guided trailing truck, the latter a more typical radial. By this convention all the MILW 4-6-4s count as âHudsonsâ for taxonomic purposes. But this would of course have been moot if the earlier F6 design has actually been built firstâŚ)
My Internet is slowed to a crawl, I have little effective time for posting, and I am flat out of interesting questions. So someone post a good one to keep the thread active!
I have a question ready, one specifically for traction fans, and so I will ask it. Name all four operators of the Osgood Bradley âAutomotiveâ double-end lightweight steetcar, that was their answer to the Brill âMaster Unit.â I am happy to say that I rode this type of car on three of systems and rode this type of car in cars that were owned by all four systems. (There is a hint there.) Two of the systems were in the same state, and all four were in the USA. Only one of the systems was the last to operate streetcars in its state.
Do you mean the âElectromobileâ, as found in Scranton and York, PA, New Bedford, Mass., and over the Queensboro Bridge (as 601 of the âQueensborough Bridge Railwayâ)?
That last, if I remember correctly, was the last trolley to run in revenue service in New York State until the mid-Eighties. I have heard an ugly story: that it was deaccessioned and dismantled in 2009 to provide parts for the rebuilding of Scranton 505 and something at the Shore Line museum.
If this is all correct, ask another one.
It was not York, PA, but a PA`place far more important for railfans, still as important as Scranton. Andnow. where did the QBrRy cars come from?
QBrRy last ran in 1957, replaced by the Roosevelt Island Arial Tramway, which ran to the mid-80âs. The ten Electomobiles came in Oct or Nov 1947, second-hand from ______. The last other streetcars in New York State were the Brooklyln PCCâs, out in Dec.1954, Church and MacDonald Avenue lines.
The Osgood Bradleys replaced double-truck arch-roof composit cars that came from the Manhattan Bridge Three-Cent Line.
Was New Bedford, Massachusetts, as I said, not correct? [EDIT - I see upon re-reading that I didnât explicitly say that New Bedford was the source. Iâll say it nowâŚ]
And yes, York, and according to John Woodman they had it new, as part of the Keystone Public Utilities order. I believe they kept the car until a comparatively late date â 1939, I think â trying to peddle it, but with no success
You were looking for Altoona, which I did not initially find because I originally found York through a different reference (a serendipitous find on the pittsburgh-railways mail list) and stopped looking there because I had four, with two in one state, as your question indicated.
For reference here is the PRCo post (edited to remove extraneous Internet quoting, etc.). I do not know who the actual poster was yet, because it was embedded in a VERY long string of unsnipped reference and I didnât have the time or inclination to muddle through the thread view to find the OP.
>>>><em> If we were to look at York Railways, they bought the Osgood Bradley Electromobile demonstrator in 1929. It was, curiously, numbered
</em><em>1929 by the builder and it carried that same number in York. In
</em><em>fact the Pennsylvania owner never repainted it. It ran as a rush
</em><em>hour extra car on the Wrightsville line. Well, come 1932 York
</em><em>Railways abandoned the York-York Haven and East York - Wrightsville
</em><em>services. Now at that point there were a lot of surplus cars ...
</em><em>probably six or seven. The Electromobile became a hangar queen
</em>*for* <em>the next seven years. It appeared on the for sale list in 1939
</em>*when* *the final abandonment took place*
Apologies.
Well, that makes five operators, instead of four. Three in PA. But the other four had a decent number of cars, typcailly ten, not just one. Can you come up with a question now?
I still got bupkis, and I donât want to leave the thread hanging. Someone ask something.
Iâll toss one in. This small streetcar system in California operated along the ocean, used converted horsecars until the end of operation in 1923, bought city cars from one of Californiaâs largest interurbans, and never operated a single air brake car. Oh, yes - on conversion from horsecars it retained a 38" gauge for several years before conversion to standard. It also operated a line that ran inside a still-active army post, and its route paralleled a street made famous by one of the West Coastâs best known writers.