I would like to know where the WP ran in California. How far north, south, west and east. Did they run along any coast? How far south did they go? Thanks, Ben
Type Western Pacific into Google, then click on Western Pacific Historical Society.
If you don’t know how to Google, try http://www.wprrhs.org then click on Contents and take it from there.
WP’s main line ran south along SF Bay from Oakland to Fremont and then over Altamont Pass to Stockton where it connected w/ Santa Fe. From Stockton it ran north through Sacramento to Oroville where it turned east up the Feather River canyon to Salt Lake City, bypassing Reno to the north. For a strech between Winnemuca and Wells Nevada it parralled SP and SP ran trains of both RRs in one direction and WP the other.A branch ran south to Reno and another line cut off from the main E/W line in the Feather River Canyon at Kedie and ran north to Beiber where it connected w/ the Great Northern, making an alternate route (ATSF/WP/GN) to SP for N/S traffic. I don’t know if WP crews changed for GN at Bieber or at Klamath Fall Or. but WP equipment ran to KF.
Don’t forget the WP branch to San Jose, the Sacramento Northern, and the Tidewater Southern.
The Tidewater Southern ran from Stockton to Turlock, via Escalon, Modesto, and Ceres. It also had a branch to the sugar refinery in southern Manteca, this is now completely removed. Another branch that came off the the main west of Turlock and went down to Hilmar. It has been cut back to only a few miles to an agricultural chemical dealer, where there are some old locomotives preserved. When I was there in 2001(?) there was an SP SD9, two GE 44 ton switchers in WP Zypher scheme (lettered for Turlock Southern), there was more that I do not remember. The TS main track is still used except for the section through Modesto (removed).
The Sacramento Northern had extensive tracks, I may have forgotten some of them. A line ran from West Sacramento to Chico (some of it used trackage rights on SP). It seems like there was a branch that ran from Marysville to the west. I think there was a branch from West Sacramento to Woodland. A branch from West Sacramento that ran south along the Sacramento River a few miles. There was a line that ran from West Sacramento through Yolo and Solano counties to the Sacramento/San Joaquin rivers delta. It seems like there was a car float there, to access the line in Contra Costa County. The Western Railway Museum is where this line crossed Highway 12. Then there was a line from Pittsburg (or Antioch) in Contra Costa County to just east of Martinez (I think).
The SN was a composite of the Northern Electric, which ran from Sacramento to Chico, and the Oakland Antioch & Eastern, which ran from Sacramento to Oakland (but not to Antioch, for various reasons.) They were originally an electric line, but started to dieselize after World War II and shut down their last electric segment (in Marysville/Yuba City) in 1964 or so. They used all their own trackage, but later on in the line’s life they started making use of other railroads’ trackage as their own track got into worse and worse condition.
There was a motorized ferry, the Ramon, that carried cars across Suisun Bay until 1954. A trestle collapse in 1951 pretty much ended the SN’s mainline running across the Bay, though, and trackage-rights deals proved cheaper than maintaining the mainline. There were also many branches off the SN, including short-lived lines to Vacaville and Davis, Colusa, Woodland (which is still in operation, formerly as the Yolo Short Line, between West Sacramento and Woodland) and the Holland Branch, which was freight-only and ran from south of West Sacramento to a bit south of Clarksburg.
After World War II, the SN’s dieselization resulted in tighter integration with WP–the SN bought most of its diesels from the WP, and used WP power when it needed extra muscle–and the WP borrowed SN diesels when necessary.
To answer a question, the closest the WP came to running along the coast were the lines to Oakland, which were near San Francisco Bay, but not along the ocean itself.