Sacramento Northern Railway
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| Sacramento Northern Railway | |
|---|---|
| Reporting marks | SN |
| Locale | Central and Northern California |
| Dates of operation | 1918 (began Dec. 27, 1904 under the Northern Electric brand before the rename to Sacramento Northern)[1] – 1983 (upon purchase by Union Pacific) |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8½ in (1435 mm) (standard gauge) |
| Headquarters | Marysville, CA [2] |
The Sacramento Northern Railway began as an electric interurban railway system in the U.S. state of California, operating under that name between 1918 and 1983 (previously "Northern Electric" from 1904-1918). It was a subsidiary of the Western Pacific Railroad from 1921. Passenger service ceased in 1941 and the system operated as a shortline freight-hauling railroad thereafter. Western Pacific could generate more income by accepting or delivering freight using Sacramento Northern because of the transfer from one railroad to another. The SN name increased WP's profits when freight was shipped.
The Sacramento Northern Railway was created out of two different systems; one, the "North End", stretched north of Sacramento through the agricultural Sacramento Valley to Chico and was originally the Northern Electric Railway. This portion reformed as the Sacramento Northern in 1918. The "South End" linked Oakland with Sacramento, and was merged into the Sacramento Northern in 1928. It was formerly known as the San Francisco–Sacramento Railroad, and before that the Oakland, Antioch and Eastern Railway. The merged portions used different electrical standards, and only some cars could traverse the entire route.
The line was one of the longest interurban runs in the nation, and was built and operated to very high standards. As with most interurban systems, passenger service became increasingly unprofitable, even after the cars entered San Francisco itself via the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge from 1939. Freight service was increasingly the lifeblood of the railroad, keeping it in service long after passenger service ceased.
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[edit] History
The first portion to be known as the Sacramento Northern Railway was the Northern Division or "North End", created from the Northern Electric Railway in 1918; this portion linked the state capitol of Sacramento with the towns of the agricultural Sacramento Valley, stretching as far as Chico. In 1921, it was purchased by the Western Pacific Railroad and operated thereafter as its subsidiary.
In 1928, the San Francisco-Sacramento Railroad (formerly the Oakland, Antioch and Eastern Railway, and originally the Oakland and Antioch Railway) was added as the Sacramento Northern's Southern Division or "South End".
The combined high-speed main line stretched for 185 miles between San Francisco and Chico. At the southern end, the railway shared the facilities of the Key System; at first, the Key Pier facility in Oakland, and then the crossing of the Bay Bridge into San Francisco's Transbay Terminal from 1939 after the bridge's construction.
The railway's fortunes were struck a heavy blow by the Great Depression and the rise of the automobile. Interurban passenger service was ended in 1941, while streetcar service in Chico continued until 1947.
Freight service continued and was heavy during the years of World War II. In 1944, the railroad received its first diesel locomotives, which began the process of de-electrification. All electric operation ceased in 1965, after which the railway operated as a minor freight subsidiary of the Western Pacific. Much trackage was abandoned over the years, especially that which duplicated routes on other railroads. The Sacramento Northern ceased to exist with the WP's acquisition by the Union Pacific in 1983.
[edit] Route
[edit] Oakland—Sacramento
Although the Oakland Yard of the Sacramento Northern was the end of the railroad's own right-of-way, its trains continued west along 40th St. on the tracks of the Key System and on to the Key System's "mole". In later years, the trains ran over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge which was built near the site of the pier, to San Francisco's Transbay Terminal, connecting by way of the Key's tracks on Yerba Buena Ave. and 40th Street. This service ended with the railroad's passenger service in 1941, but freight interchange with the Key System continued until that system's demise.
The terminus of the railroad's right of way in Oakland was a compact yard on the corner of 40th Street and Shafter Avenue. The main line ran north up narrow Shafter in a residential area. At the end of Shafter, the tracks started a long, climbing curve up into the Berkeley Hills in the Rockridge district of Oakland. It then skirted Lake Temescal on its eastern shore and ran southeast through the Montclair district of Oakland.
It crossed into Montclair over a trestle at Moraga Ave. and Thornhill Dr., then ran along a high berm between Montclair Recreation Center and Montclair Elementary School, before crossing Mountain Blvd. and Snake Road via trestle. High above the northwest side of Shepherd Canyon, the line followed parallel to that road heading east, then made a sharp turn north as it passed through a major cut in the hill, and then up the canyon to a station called "Havens" at Paso Robles Dr., named for real estate developer Frank C. Havens, one-time partner of the Key System's "Borax" Smith who was trying to encourage sales in Shepherd Canyon.
At a spot directly below Saroni Drive, the tracks entered a long single-track tunnel through the Berkeley Hills. The tunnel itself is still intact, but sealed at both ends. The tracks exited the northeast end of the tunnel at Pinehurst Road near Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve, and immediately entered a sharp curve to run southeastward through Redwood Canyon. Although technically oriented to the northeast (perpendicular to the axis of the hills), the railroad designated a station just outside the portal "Eastport". The portal is no longer visible, largely as a result of a landslide which occurred during the El Niño rains of the early 1980s. It was located along an extant fire trail west of the spot where Pinehurst Road makes a sharp u-turn. This fire trail was previously known as Winding Way on some maps, and was originally an old 19th century logging road built by Hiram Thorn, for bringing redwood logs out of the Moraga Redwoods and to his mill, and then over the mountain into Oakland. Even earlier, the route up the canyon to what is now Huckleberry preserve was a cattle trail for the Spanish and Mexican ranchers, en route to a landing at the mouth of Temescal Creek on San Francisco Bay.
At the end of the sharp curve at Eastport, the tracks immediately crossed over the road on an overpass. The right-of-way then headed down Redwood Canyon on a ledge (which is still apparent today) just above Pinehurst Rd. southeast along the valley floor past the small community of Canyon. The line then turned north into Moraga, past St. Mary's, and thence northeasterly through the valley past Walnut Creek and continuing to a ferry landing on Suisun Bay. There, a ferry boat, the Ramon, carried the entire train across to a landing near Suisun. The line then proceeded across an extensive marshland on a long trestle. After the trestle, the tracks continued to Sacramento, entering the city by way of the "M" Street Bridge (1911), and later by way of its replacement (1935), the Tower Bridge, which is still in use.
Service from Oakland to Lafayette ceased on March 1, 1957 and the tracks were removed and the tunnel sealed. The following year, service only extended from Sacramento to Walnut Creek. The Ferry "Ramon" was removed from service in 1954, thus creating a divide between Mallard and Chipps Island. To overcome this limitation, SN, through parent Western Pacific, obtained trackage rights on the Santa Fe Railway from Stockton to Pittsburg, where the SN would then enter its own tracks. When Union Pacific took over operations, they obtained further trackage rights on the Santa Fe which extended to Port Chicago, where SN had a small yard. Thus, the trackage in Pittsburg was removed in the early 1990's.
[edit] Sacramento—Chico
From the SN's Sacramento depot, the line ran north, with a branch line that ran 16 miles west to Woodland (known as the Yolo Shortline RR until 2003 and now known as the Sierra Northern Railway)[3]. This track ran on the west side of the Sacramento River, over an elevated wooden bridge (over a flood plain), and then down Main St. in Woodland to the Opera House where the train turned around. Today's SLRR terminates at 2nd St., several blocks East of the Opera House.
The line north ran to Marysville, Yuba City, Oroville, and terminated in Chico.
Another branchline ran west to Colusa from a junction northwest of Yuba City.
[edit] Technical information
[edit] Electrification
Because of interconnection with the Key System, Sacramento Northern cars had to operate under a number of different electrical standards. The North End was electrified exclusively at 600 Volts DC, which was the standard trolley and interurban voltage. Trolley wire and trolley poles were used only in urban areas; in the open country, the line used a solid, top-contact third rail. Cars built originally for the North End could not operate south of Sacramento. The South End was electrified largely at 1,200 Volts until 1936, after which it operated at 1,500 Volts, with areas of 600 Volts in Oakland and Sacramento.
The cars had to use a pantograph rather than the trolley pole on Key System rails (electrified at 600 Volts) and over the Bay Bridge (electrified at 1,200 Volts for the Southern Pacific); the Key System used a bottom-contact third rail over the bridge. Because of the Key System's third rail, cars that could traverse the whole system had to have their third rail shoes removed, since the top-contact shoes would have fouled the Key System rail. They were normally added or removed in Sacramento. Such all-line cars were switchable between 600 V and 1,200 V operation; they could also operate at half speed at the 1,200 V setting on 600 V overhead.
The railway's high quality electrification used catenary rather than trolley wire over most of the road, leading to the eventual exclusive use of pantographs rather than trolley poles over the whole road.
[edit] Suisun Bay crossing
[edit] Planned bridge
The Oakland, Antioch and Eastern needed to cross Suisun Bay, and chose to do so between West Pittsburg and Chipps Island, a gap of 2,600 feet (790 m). A bridge was originally planned, but the bay saw heavy shipping traffic and thus a high-level draw bridge with long approaches was required. Construction began on the bridge in 1912; the estimated price tag was $1.5 million and construction time was estimated as two and a half years. This would have delayed the opening of the railway, and so an alternative plan of a ferry service was implemented as a temporary measure. Construction of the bridge stopped in May 1913 after construction of the pier on the Contra Costa County side, because of a shortage of funds. The railway, not meeting revenue expectations, never did restart construction, and the "temporary" ferry service became permanent. [1]
[edit] Car ferry service
Thus, the railway became one of only two interurbans to operate a car ferry, and was the longer and more ambitious of the two. The first ferry constructed, the 186-foot (57 m) Bridgit (a pun on "Bridge It") was constructed of wood in San Francisco and launched in July 1913. The Bridgit, however, was destroyed by fire on May 17, 1914.
After unsuccessful experiments with an unpowered barge, the railroad rented car floats from other railroads in the area and commissioned a new, steel ferry from the Lanteri Shipyard in nearby Pittsburg. The new vessel, the Ramon, was constructed entirely from flat steel plate to save time, and had no curved surfaces on its hull. It was a double-ended design with a central, raised bridge in the typical carfloat style. Power was by a 600 horsepower distillate engine, one of the largest ever constructed, which was rather insufficient to counteract high winds and currents in the bay.
Three tracks were installed on the deck, all long enough to carry three passenger cars or five freight cars. All three could not be used at the same time; the central track overlapped the other two, and either the single central track or the two outside tracks could be used, depending on load. All tracks were equipped with powered trolley wire.
The Ramon was retired in 1954 after a Coast Guard inspection determined that the hull plating was no longer in a safe condition, and it was scrapped locally.
[edit] Today
- Some of the Sacramento Northern's original track is still in service with the Union Pacific or other railroads, while portions of the right-of-way are used for BART in the Oakland and Walnut Creek-Concord area or light rail in the Sacramento area. A 22-mile portion is owned by the Western Railway Museum near Rio Vista, California and Suisun City, California, and a portion of it has been re-electrified.
- A number of Sacramento Northern cars and locomotives survive, some at the Western Railway Museum, and others at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, California
- In Yuba City, the original Northern Electric bridge over the Feather River is still in use. It's just to the south of the Hwy 20 bridge and still has the NE initials on both sides of the bridge. Another NE bridge exists in Sacramento over the American River. Now turned into a bike/jogging path, it runs from downtown Sacramento to the suburb of Rio Linda crossing the old NE bridge and is paved with asphalt.[4]
- The Marysville depot is still standing near J St and 4th (look up the hill) and is in private use.
- The SN's Oakland Yard at Shafter and 40th was demolished in the 1960s to make way for several new structures including a medical office building. The medical office building was razed by a fire in the late 1990s. In 2006, a new apartment building is nearing completion with the name "Temescal Station", which although reminiscent of the site's former railroad use, was never the name of the SN's yard and station here. There was a Temescal Station---a stop, not a depot---just northwest of Lake Temescal.
- The SN's Woodland depot survived in increasingly poor condition until about 1980 when it was acquired by a private individual who found the original plans for it in the California State Archives and proceeded to raze it, then entirely reconstruct it. [5]
- Remnants of the Tres Vias to Oroville branch line (grade and culverts) are still visible east of the intersection of Feather Avenue and Tenth Street in rural Thermalito; the grade presently serves as a storm water levee.
- Miles of the Oakland right-of-way remain throughout the Montclair hills and the village as paved walking paths, concrete retaining walls that used to support overpasses, and high elevated embankments that cut through tennis courts, the school yard, and behind the park and recreation center building, and, less accessibly, behind the old firehouse and adjacent structures.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Bowen, Jerry. Solano: The Way it Was.
[edit] References
- Hilton, George W. & Due, John F. (1960, 2000). The Electric Interurban Railways in America. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-4014-3.
- Trimble, Paul C. (2005). Sacramento Northern Railway. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia. ISBN 0-7385-3052-2.
- Groff, Garth G. (2006). Sacramento Northern On-Line.
- Bay Area Electric Railroad Association (2006). History of the Sacramento Northern Railway. Western Railway Museum.
