Gotta see it

What street is the overpass on?  I've got to go see it in person.  It's only about 12 miles away!

Mark

The Santa Fe ran the San Francisco Chief into the Bay area.

Except for a special event to mark the kick off of the service, the S.F. Chief only went to Oakland, and did not cross into San Francisco as far as I know.  In the late 1930's Santa Fe ran the Valley Flyer between Oakland and Bakersfield, but I think the San Francisco Chief made the same stops as the Valley Flyer used to make and served as a replacement for the Valley Flyer.  I don't know of any other Santa Fe passenger trains that went to the Bay area.

It's on Tenent Avenue at the

It's on Tenent Avenue at the ATSF crossing - been there for about 10 years. I believe it was painted for Pinole's centennial.

Edit: found a few photos of the whole mural from the artist's website.

Another view

I wasn't suggesting that Santa Fe passenger trains ran into San Francisco though I was glad to learn that Warbonnets  did actually  go into the Bay Area.  A central valley branch line up from Bakerfield.  How long did it last?

It has always sort of bothered me that the overland route (UP-CP) ended in Oakland at a ferry slip but that's the nature of the geography. I would have preferred that the first great transcontinental route end in a more grandiose way - kind of like a big city union station.

The SP did have a pretty nice one in the Spanish Mission style, at Third and Townsend.  It did have  fairly intense commuter traffic up the peninsula as well as the Daylights and the Lark.

And so in my imaginary world, the Bay Area cities are represented by just one. And daylights, larks, overlands, warbonnets and long forgotten trains - the Statesman,  the Beaver, the Gold Coast, the Owl, the Governor, the Senator, the El Dorado all can find some expression, if not in an entirely prototypical way.

Muir Station

Here is a picture of an eastbound ATSF passenger train stopped at Muir Station at the eastern end of the steel viaduct bridge crossing Alhambra Valley in Martinez. John Muir's house is a stone's throw from the bridge. The track alongside the station is a single-ended spur used primarily to load fruits and nuts grown locally. Close behind the photographer is a single-tracked tunnel crossing under State Highway 4.

The station burned down in 1941, so someone knowledgeable about ATSF's early diesels should be able to narrow down when this photo was taken.  There must have been a special occasion for all those people to show up.

Ain't no branchline

The ATSF line to Richmond/Oakland was no branchline.  It is still heavily used by the BNSF.

Cross into San Francisco?

It is about 60 or more rail miles (over SP, now UP trackage) from Oakland to San Francisco except for BART tunneling under the bay and the light-rail commuter trains that used to run on the Bay Bridge.  It was only a six-mile ferry ride between Oakland and San Francisco.  I can't imagine an ATSF passenger train in San Francisco as that was SP territory.

Santa Fe had a fleet of ferry boats to complete the trip to S.F.

To my knowledge, they ran special promotional trains to San rancisco for display in the North Beach area only twice.  Once was for the inauguration of the San Francisco Chief service, and than a few years later when they incorporated high level El Capitan cars on the San Francisco Chief.  Both times the trains were there for only a week or so.  The train actually terminated in Oakland, with ferry service to San Francisco from Richmond if I remember correctly.  I think they  may have had a terminal in So. San Francisco where passenger cars from the S.F. Chief could be switched into, but I'm really kind of "hazy" on that point.

The Valley Flyer was in operation during two years only (1937 &1938?).  It was put into service to coincide with the Pan Am festival that was built on the then new Treasure Island adjacent to Yerba Buena Island in the middle of the bay.  During WW2 T.I. became a naval base that was in operation until shut down during the military base closings of the1980's & 1990's.

By the way, the Valley Flyer was the precurser of the War Bonnet Scheme.  There were two train sets, both heaveyweight consists pulled by semi streamlined pacific type steam engines.  The pilot and streamlining was painted silver with red, black, & yellow pin stripes running from pilot through the side boards into the sides of the tender and then to the bottom edge of silver painted heavey weight passenger cars.  The paint scheme later "morphed" into the War Bonnet scheme with the advent of diesel power.  The original box cabs destined for the inaugural Super Chief were originally painted in  blue & green with some red accents, but were soon repainted into the red &silver warbonnet, when the E-1 "spot motors" were added to the roster.

Santa Fe's Golden Gate

This information was taken from pages 100 and 102 of Duke and Kistler's Santa Fe ... Steel Rails Through California published in 1963 when the subject train was still in operation.

On July 1, 1938 Santa started its Golden Gate trains.  Buses carried passengers from San Francisco to the San Pablo station in Oakland using the Bay Bridge.  (The SP had a fleet of ferries to carry passengers between its terminals in Oakland and San Francisco.)  There were two sets of Golden Gate trains which ran between Oakland and Bakersfield with buses connecting Bakersfield and Los Angeles as Amtrak still does today.

Early Golden Gate trains consisted of an EMD E cab unit with 1,800 horsepower diesel (an E1A?), baggage car, three coaches, a Fred Harvey lunch counter-diner, and a parlor observation car.  Cars were stainless steel and air-conditioned.

The Valley Flyer was a six-car steam-powered passenger train placed in service June 11, 1939 and had the same modus operandi as the Golden Gate.  The cars were re-built heavyweights with air conditioning. consisting of a combination baggage-club car, a refreshment car, three coaches, and a diner.  It ran from Bakersfield to Oakland in the morning and returned in the afternoon.  The locomotive and tender were painted red, yellow and silver on their sides (Pacific-type no. 1369 is pictured).  There was one train a day in each direction as opposed to the Golden Gate's two.

Were you thinking of the World's Fair?

The World's Fair was held in 1939 and 1940.  TI was built by the federal government to serve Pan American's flying boats (seaplanes).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_International_Exposition

The Santa Fe had barges which carried freight cars to/from South San Francisco, Alameda. and Richmond, and to serve its part-time NWP subsidiary, Tiburon.  The Santa Fe had at least one passenger ferry (Ocean Wave)connecting Oakland and San Francisco.  Since the ATSF used SP's Oakland Mole ferry terminal, I think it likely that ATSF passengers ended up using SP's ferries until bus service over the Bay Bridge was inaugerated.  On the other hand, the SP had a fleet of passenger ferries connecting Oakland and San Francisco.  SP's San Francisco ferry building still stands proudly, filled with commercial businesses (like restaurants) and its adjacent pier serving local passenger ferries connecting several bay-side cities such as Vallejo, Alameda, etc.

Main Line, not branch line

It is the Santa Fe's Main Line to the Bay Area, with Richmond, CA as its major terminal and reached San Francisco's China Basin via ferry service which lasted to the mid 1980's. Santa Fe did have a branch to Oakland that was used for passenger and freight service, but was abandonded in 1979 in favor of trackage rights over the SP. San Francisco Chief operated from I believe the mid-1950's to the end of Santa Fe passenger service. A very intresting main line from Stockton to Richmond. I have always thought it would make a great model, say set in the late 1960's through early 1980s.

Paul

Main Line and Muir Station

Gosh, I have a lot of fun exploring my ignorance.  The  SuperChief (and  it's lesser cousin,the El Capitan) going from Chicago to LA through the  Cajon Pass is probably the most famous train in the west. .  This route was clearly where the action was (and still is) on the Santa Fe. 

Technically though, the line from the south (Bakersfield?) through Stockton to Richmond was (and still is) a main line.  It seems to terminate in a fairly large freight yard along the Richmond Parkway near the Richmond-San Raphael Bridge.

I would like to know more about the "San Francisco Chief".  I have a small book of pictures titled "Southern Pacific in the Bay Area - The Golden Years of Railroading" that mentions "The Santa Fe, like the WP, a latecomer to the Bay Area, had a ferry slip at Ferry Point in Richmond.  It later acquired a line down through Berkeley to Oakland, running in streets much of the way."

"In 1933 Western Pacific and Santa Fe both moved their passenger operations to SP"s Oakland Pier station.  In 1939 the Santa Fe built a new station at 40th Street and San Pablo Avenue, handy to the east end of the Bay Bridge. and about the same time opened a bus station on Fourth Street in San Francisco.  It moved its passengers from SP's ferries to a new bus service over the Bay Bridge.  Santa Fe pulled back to a terminal in Richmond in 1958."  Not exactly as glamorous an entry as pulling into LA's Union Station IMHO.

And Mark thanks for posting the neat old photo of Muir Station.  I guess traffic didn't justify the expense of rebuilding it and the station didn't make it into the "Golden Age".

West of Muir Trestle, Highway 4 crosses under the BNSF line. If a person was interested they could park here and get some great action shots but you would have to have a schedule of movements or be very lucky.

Point Richmond

Aran

You should go out to Point Richmond, the old ferry slip is there along with an excellent model railroad club not too far away. Also worth a look is the muir trestle located in Martinez. If you head further east, there are several locations that are worth a look. One that comes to mind is the bridge at Orwood out in east Contra Costa Country or the stretch between Port Chicago and Pittsburg. If you are in to finding old industrial locations, Point Richmond is excellent, along with the stretch from Port Chicago to Oakley. You can get an excellent feel for what this line was like back in the day.

Paul

Martinez trains

Here is a contemporary picture partially capturing the "Muir"/Alhambra Valley steel viaduct bridge, looking mostly eastward.  There are tunnels close to both ends of the bridge, and there is a mile-plus-long tunnel several miles to the west.

The now-BNSF line is freight only, and trains are seen/heard frequently 24/7.  On the other hand, the SP/UP line is "burdened" with substantial numbers of  Amtrak and Caltrans trains between Oakland and Sacramento and the rest of the continent.  While passenger trains are frequent during the day, I haven't seen a freight train during daylight hours at the times I've been trackside at Martinez.  Thus, I presume SP/UP freight trains are at night.

Between Pinole and Martinez

Aran, I've been there, done that, but I had more interesting skys.

Wow!

How wonderful!  My San Pablo, Sonora, & Fresno Railroad uses these very scens as its prototype.  I used to live about 3/4 mile from the Alhambra Valley testle, and plan to build a walk-under model of it where my layout (magilcally) shifts from the Santa Fe main to the SP main at Martinez.  My great grandfather was section foreman on the Santa Fe at Glen Frazer, which is the east end of the long tunnel mentioned in one of the posts, and that tunnel will also be on my layout.  I actually rode on the San Francisco Chief in 1962 to Pinole, where my grandparents lived after moving from Hercules when my grandfather retired from the dynamite plant.  I even attended Pinole-Hercules Public School #2 for a month then!  I remember the striking Warbonnets running through San Pablo, Pinole, and Franklin Canyon until the Santa Fe stopped their passenger service.  I was in the Air Force at the time, stationed not too far from Barstow, and I convinced my wife, who lived in Point Richmond at the time, to take the SF Chief to Barstow to visit me.  She's ridden over the Tehacapi Loop, and wasn't even aware of it!

Anyway, the San Francisco Chief was the last new streamlined passenger train inaugurated in this country, in 1958.  It was normally pulled by Warbonnet F units, until the FP45s took over in the late 50s. Richmond is actually the western terminus of the Santa Fe.  On my layout, it'll be the Richmond Yard in San Pablo.

Following Joe's advice, I'm going to be modeling what I know and love, and it turns out virtually everything I want to model happens to be in Contra Costa County, between Richmond and Antioch, with some fantasy narrow gauge coal railroading in the Black Diamond Mines area south of Pittsburg.  What a treat it was to see these pictures.

    Paul

The fourth quarter 2008 issue of "The Warbonnet"

featured the San Francisco Chief.  To sumarize what was in that issue, the San Francisco Chief was inaugurated in 1954.  By the 1960's it was the longest of the Santa Fe passenger trains, and used cars from most of the Santa Fe passenger trains to complete the consist.  I think the only cars that were never used on the San Francisco Chief were the Dome cars from the Super Chief containing the Turquoise private dining rooms.  The San Francisco Chief received the "Big Dome" cars that had the crew quarters in the lower level.  Those six Big Domes with the crew quarters were the only cars specially built for the San Francisco Chief.  The San Francisco Chief was also the last passenger train operated on the Santa Fe and only ceased operations with the inauguration of Amtrak service in 1971.

Modeling CCC

Hi Paul,

Another interesting bridge, located about a mile east from the Alhambra Valley Bridge, is the overcrossing of Morello Avenue in Martinez  There are three things that make this ballasted-deck-girder bridge interesting: (1) it crosses the middle of an "S" curve in the road, (2) the abutments are built for two tracks while there is only one track, and (3) there is a separate egg-shaped pedestrian passage no doubt based on a culvert design.

Mark in Martinez

Editor: Changed picture size to fit.

Was this originally a double tracked line?

I wonder if or when the second track was eliminated?

Missing track

I have wondered the same.  The ATSF/BNSF line here has always been single-tracked as evidenced by the tunnels and bridges elsewhere.  Maybe they had planned to have a passing track but didn't install it, or they later tore it out.

Bridge abutments

You will find if very common along the Santa Fe through Contra Costa that where the line is single tracked and goes over a road or waterway, that most concrete bridge abutments have room for 2 bridges in case the need arose to double track. Most locations it never was and now if they were to double track it, they would have to build new abutments because double track spacing is now wider than in the past. A good example is how the new FRA double track spacing rule worked out is where Willow Pass Road meets Range Road in Pittsburg, CA where the SP and Santa Fe both cross the road, where the Santa Fe has been double tracked through the area after the rule took effect.

Paul

Thanks for sharing your plans and memories

Sounds like the San Ramon branch of the SP would be active during the time that you intend to model and could generate  additional traffic for your pike.  Apparently it connected into the main line somewhere around Martinez but I do not know if there are any traces of the line left around there.  It also would be interesting to know if the ATSF and SP  interchanged with each other around Martinez.  They had to have crossed.

How wonderful!  My San Pablo, Sonora, & Fresno Railroad

San Ramon Branch

The San Ramon branch connected with the SP's Mococo Line (Martinez to Tracy) at Avon, 3.4 miles east of Martinez.  There was a wye leading into the branch.  When the branch was extended south from San Ramon to Radum, near Pleasanton, it connected with SP's Altamont Pass/Niles Canyon Line (Niles to Tracy), also with a wye.  The Western Pacific crossed two tails of that wye (no interchange).  Trains were able to take a circle route to/from Oakland and the San Ramon branch.  Trains originated/terminated at mainline points San Francisco, Oakland, and Port Costa, depending on era and circumstances.)   Irma M. Dotson's book San Ramon Branch Line of the Southern Pacific (published by the Museum of the San Ramon Valley, Danville, CA) covers the life of the branch extensively, and includes SP's early right-of-way maps.

The Santa Fe didn't interchange with the SP at Martinez.  The Santa Fe ran parallel but 2 to 3 miles distant of the SP in that area.  While the SP had a water-level grade, late-comer Santa Fe had to bridge and tunnel through the hills at this point.  The Santa Fe closely paralled the SP west of Pinole and east of Port Chicago.  Close-by interchange points would be around Pittsburg/Antioch to the east of Martinez and Richmond/Oakland west of Martinez.  The railroads were competitors, so I can only imagine cars were interchanged in the area only because the other railroad served a particular industry.

1950 ORER listing of interchanges

In the East Bay, SP had interchanges with the ATSF at Richmond, Port Chicago, and Pittsburg.