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.
rcdrye 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 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 Association's Niles Canyon operation further west.
California Railway or Rail Road. I can find maps with references, but they're 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. It's president had a city named after him.
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 Fe's entrance into Oakland. It ran through Berkeley a little to the east of SP's main line. Key System's 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 1903' BART built along the California and Nevada right of way thru El Cerrito in the 60's while that railroad was still using the line to Oakland.
No not SP. Should be easy now.
Thx IGN
California and Nevada's 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 Fe's 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 60's and early 70's.
Researching the line thru Berkeley gave me an appreciation of the history involved. And the various turns.
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.
I'll 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 isn't a Hudson (which I think would rule out the obvious answer of Minneapolis/St. Paul - does (do?) the Twin Cities not count as 'midwestern'?) 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, 4-6-4's anyway) from Chicago to the Twin Cities, as well as between Chicago and Omaha (unless Omaha isn't midwestern...), though not all at the same time on either route.
C&NW's 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.
Burlington's 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 "Big Alice the Goon" after a character drawn by Popeye's 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.
Milwaukee's F7s 100-105 (also known as "Baltics"...) 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 'Baltic' part -- and I definitely should have recognized this.
(As a little peripheral note, a distinction between 'Baltic' and 'Hudson' 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 'Hudsons' for taxonomic purposes. But this would of course have been moot if the earlier F6 design has actually been built first...)
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 "Automotive" double-end lightweight steetcar, that was their answer to the Brill "Master Unit." 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 "Electromobile", as found in Scranton and York, PA, New Bedford, Mass., and over the Queensboro Bridge (as 601 of the "Queensborough Bridge Railway")?
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-80's. The ten Electomobiles came in Oct or Nov 1947, second-hand from ______. The last other streetcars in New York State were the Brooklyln PCC's, 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.
daveklepperThe ten Electromobiles came in Oct or Nov 1947, second-hand from ______.
Was New Bedford, Massachusetts, as I said, not correct? [EDIT - I see upon re-reading that I didn't explicitly say that New Bedford was the source. I'll say it now...]
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 -- 1939, I think -- 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 didn't have the time or inclination to muddle through the thread view to find the OP.
>>>> If we were to look at York Railways, they bought the Osgood Bradley Electromobile demonstrator in 1929. It was, curiously, numbered 1929 by the builder and it carried that same number in York. In fact the Pennsylvania owner never repainted it. It ran as a rush hour extra car on the Wrightsville line. Well, come 1932 York Railways abandoned the York-York Haven and East York - Wrightsville services. Now at that point there were a lot of surplus cars ... probably six or seven. The Electromobile became a hangar queen for the next seven years. It appeared on the for sale list in 1939 when the final abandonment took place but no one bought it.
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 don't want to leave the thread hanging. Someone ask something.
I'll 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 California's 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 Coast's best known writers.
rcdrye I'll 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 California's 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 Coast's best known writers.
The Monterrey and Pacific Grove Street Railway. The still active army post, The Presidio of Monterrey. The street, Cannery Row. The author, John Steinbeck.
Well Done! (except Monterey only gets one "r"!). A shoestring operation its entire life, the M&PG still had some clever folks who managed to stretch horsecar bodies, convert open cars, regauge odd trucks and reuse other systems' discards (M&PG cars 1 and 2 came from the Northern Electric, later Sacramento Northern) to keep operating, if barely, into the 1920s. The Fremont street hill up to the Presidio must have been a lot of fun to descend on hand brakes.
I blame spell checker for the misspelling of Monterey. You identified the city too well. From them I was looking at Union Traction. Then looked again and found the right line. There is a book on the line.
The IGN
Now for another narrow and short question
Name this railway
To paraphrase the plaque on this railway
"Built in 1901 by a friend of President Abraham Lincoln, this narrow gauge is said to be the world's shortest incorporated railway. The counterbalanced cars, controlled by cables, travel a 33 percent grade for 315 feet. It is estimated that this railway has carried more passengers per mile than any other railway in the world, over a hundred million in its first fifty years. This incline railway is a public utility operating under a franchise granted by the city which it operates in." (Edited to delete or obscure location and name)
This railway has operated on two different sites, using the same cars and station elements. The original location operated from 1901 until it was closed in 1969, when its site was cleared for redevelopment.
After being stored for 27 years, the funicular was rebuilt and reopened on February 24, 1996, half a block south of the original site. Currently it is closed after an accident raised a number of safety issues
It should be an easy question.
Angel's Flight in L. A.
You got it. Your question.
We'll try one more west coast one. This city's last cable car line at one time shared one rail with interurbans for about a block, but lasted longer than the interurbans.
Seattle, where the interurban to Tacoma quit in 1929, to Everett in 1937 (or '39?), but cable cars ran to 1940 Electric streetcars quit in 1941.
daveklepper Seattle, where the interurban to Tacoma quit in 1929, to Everett in 1937 (or '39?), but cable cars ran to 1940 Electric streetcars quit in 1941.
Most are aware of the three lightweight articulated experimental trains, the Pullman alulminum "Green Hornet," the Budd "Little Zephyr," and the St. Louis "Bluebird," that were built for the the BMT 1934-1937, the latter sharing much mechanical and electric equipment with standard PCC streetcars. The original Bluebird was duplicated by five production units with the additional 95 cancelled when the City took over the BMT in June 1940. The production units were reglarly used on the 14th Street - Canarsie line until late 1954, when they went to scrap along with the first of the 98 Brooklyn PCC cars that were scrapped. The experimentals were used msotly on the Franklin Avenue shuttle, the Zephyr being a regular during WWII. LaGuardia decided the Green Hornet was more valuable as aluminum for the war effort, and was scrapped around 1942, the others lasting through the war.
The experimentals and the production Bluebirds were all designed to be light enough for any of the BMT elevated lines, as well as for use in subway service. The elevated lines at the time of the experimentals included the Fifth Avenue elevated and both its Bay Ridge branch and the connection to the Culver Line used jointly with subway service, the Myrtle Avenue line, wih the portion north of Broadway also used by subway service, the Lexington Avenue and Fulton Street elevateds. But the experimentals could only be used on one of these elevated lines and not on the others. Which one could be use them, and did (especially the Green Hornet for a while) and why?
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