Peninsular Railway

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The Peninsular Railway was an interurban electrified railway in the U.S. State of California in the United States of America. It served the area between San Jose, Los Gatos, and Palo Alto, comprising much of what is today known as "Silicon Valley". For much of its existence it was a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

The Peninsular Railway was incorporated in January, 1906 as a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific in response to calls for an interurban line from San Francisco to San Jose. The original plan for the San Francisco to San Jose line comprises much the same route that Caltrain operates on today. In addition to the line to Los Gatos, branches were also planned to extend to Alviso, Oakland and Lick Observatory. However, due to the Colorado River flood of 1905 (which created the Salton Sea), many of the rails to be used for this construction had to be rushed to the Imperial Valley to rebuild the Southern Pacific line between Los Angeles and Yuma, Arizona. Therefore, only the lines connecting San Jose, Palo Alto and Los Gatos were constructed, and interurban service did not exist between Palo Alto and San Mateo. Another attempt to complete this line came in the next decade, but construction was again delayed by a scarcity of steel rails, this time due to World War I.

By 1920 the sixty-eight mile system connected San Jose and Palo Alto via the Stevens Creek Road and the Southern Pacific line via Monta Vista and Mayfield (with a branch line to Stanford University); San Jose and Los Gatos via several county roads and the San Jose-Los Gatos Road; and Los Gatos and Palo Alto via the Saratoga-Los Gatos Road and Saratoga-Santa Clara Road (with a branch from Saratoga to Congress Springs).

[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. 

• Scott, Mel (1958, 1985). The San Francisco Bay Area: A Metropolis in Perspective. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-05510-1.