The San Ramon Branch of the SP and other railroads of CCC
Thank you for reading this. I thought that i would throw out what I think I know and let the more knowledgeable correct my misinformation and thereby coalesce a useful body of knowledge. Hopefully I can edit this thing after posting.
As far as I know, the first transcontinental railway entered the San Francisco Bay Area through the Altamount pass and Niles Canyon to terminate at the Oakland waterfront in 1869. Over the next ten years the Central Pacific extended this line along the bay through Emeryville, Berkeley, Richmond, Pinole, El Sobrante, Hercules, Crockett, Port Costa, Martinez and out along the delta. At Port Costa, the railroad ferried the trains across San Pablo Bay to Benicia where they continued on to Sacramento and beyond. As the route along the bay was substantially flatter that the route over the Altamount pass it became the preferred route into the Bay Area for the Central Pacific especially after the completion of the Martinez-Benicia Bridge over Suisun Bay in 1931.
The county seat of Contra Costa County was established in Martinez in (fill in blank). At the time the county was primarily agricultural with orchards and ranches predominating. A series of towns developed namely Concord (which had been previously named Todos Santos - all saints in Spanish), Walnut Creek, Alamo, Danville, San Ramon, Dublin and Pleasanton. The leaders of these towns determined that their fortunes would increase if the Southern Pacific (I've never really understood how the CP became the SP) extended a line from Martinez on through the flat lands of Concord to the San Ramon Valley and onto a connection with the Niles Canyon line. This line was completed in 1891,
As series of combination depots were built to serve the local communities. It also appears every town had a hay and feed business adjacent to the depot. Somewhere in the sixties or seventies the line was abandoned and the track pulled up.
The branch began approximately 3 1/2 miles east of Martinez at a town named Avon (alternately named Marsh after the owner of the land). Avon is gone, the town site is now under an oil refinery but some of the ROW may survive as a spur still in use.
The ROW from Concord through to Dublin survives as a bike path. The Concord depot and its trackage is long gone but a through truss bridge is visible from Monument Blvd. Some older railroad related warehouse buildings still survive in Pleasant Hill. Some of the ROW through Walnut Creek is now a bike path. The Walnut Creek depot was moved to a new location and converted into a restaurant. The Danville depot was also moved but probably now a museum.
The SRVL (San Ramon Valley Line) was crossed the ATSF about a mile from Avon. The Oakland, Antioch and Eastern (a predecessor of the Sacramento Northern, a branch of the Western Pacific) crossed the SRL at least twice, once in Concord and once in Alamo. It's ROW ran along the Port Chicago Highway thorugh Concord. There is also a section of it visible along Olympic Blvd in the section of Walnut Creek formerly known as Saranap.
AFAIK (as far as I know) the rest of the railroad has been lost to freeways, parking lots, office parks and suburban housing tracts. Whether enough information can be pulled together to develop a plan for a satisfactory model railroad based on the SRVL is an open question.
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Comments
The right of way from Avon to
The right of way from Avon to Radum (Pleasanton) is preserved as the Iron Horse Trail. Most of it is paved. It was built in two stages - the north end from Avon to San Ramon was completed in 1891 and then an extension from San Ramon to Radum in 1909. There were four #18 combination depots built - Concord, Walnut Creek, Danville and San Ramon. WC and Danville still exist. There was a freight house in Alamo and a turn table and engine house in San Ramon. SP ran mixed trains through 1934. The segment from Avon to San Ramon was abandoned in 1978 - not sure when the Alameda county segment was abandoned, but I remember crews salvaging track in Dubin in 1986 or 1987. If I think about it, I can probably come up with the industries still served toward the end - right off the top of my head, there were a couple of ready mix/quaries and metal fab plants at Radum, Camp Parks and a couple of building supply houses in Dublin, Kodak distribution center in San Ramon etc.
Oh yeah, Concord was called Todos Santos until the 1870's. As I recall, the connection at Avon was a mile or so west of Concord Naval Weapons.
Some of my Railroad Photos
Insight into rail development
For some insight into some of the "when's" and "why's" concerning early rail development around your subject area, may I suggest the book The Great Persuader (biography of Collis Huntington). by David Lavender. It was some time back when I read it, but what I recall is that there was a lot of information about who got into the San Francisco Bay area first, second, and so on, and who the players (and shooters) were. Lavender, as a historian, was second to none in the depth and accuracy of his research.
Another excellent resource for the rails west is Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad, by David Haward Bain. Again, well-researched.
Don
Rincon Pacific Rwy, 1960. HO scale std. gauge - interchange with SP.
DCC-NCE, CMRI, JMRI
Mococo
This is a photo of the Mococo smelter/plant looking north, with Suisun Bay and the town of Benicia in the background. The plant was located just east of where the the SP Suisun Bay railroad bridge would be completed in 1930, connecting Martinez with Benicia. Fertilizer must have been a byproduct of its copper smelting. The copper ore came from the Mt. Shasta area. SP's line between Martinez and Tracy was named after the company abbreviation.
Concerning the reactivation of the Mococo line:
http://www.co.contra-costa.ca.us/DocumentView.aspx?DID=2686
Mark Pierce
www.nilesdepot.org/centervill
www.nilesdepot.org/centerville/sp_depots.html
Here's how the Danville depot looked - it's now a museum.
Some of my Railroad Photos
Niles Canyon Railway
Perhaps you vets know about this, but I thought I would share it, since I recently came across this.
http://www.ncry.org/index.htm
The Niles Canyon Railway operates for railfans and tourists and includes a somewhat unique item in their roster - the Yosemite Valley RR car #330. Apparently, #330 is owned and being restored by Wes Smith (http://www.yv330.com). A handsome car indeed.
Keep on trackin'
Bill
N Scale (1:160), not N Gauge. DC (analog), Stapleton PWM Throttle.
Proto-freelance Southweat U.S. 2nd half 20th Century.
Keep on trackin'
Hookston
This is the Hookston depot on the San Ramon Branch, looking eastward in the late afternoon. It was located between Concord and Walnut Creek in what is now the town of Pleasant Hill. There were two double-ended sidings, one on each side of the main track. On the northern end of the eastside siding was the depot, and on the northern end of the westside siding was a winery. Don't know what was further south on the sidings, but is that the edge of a fruit shed/loading facility to the right of the depot? Obviously, there was some dairy production around here. Mt. Diablo is in the background.
Mark Pierce
I love this type of threads
Mark, let me say just "I love this post" !
Nice pictures and informative captions.... please, never stop to drop more!
Cheers
Enzo Fortuna
Modeling the friendly Espee in Italy
http://enzofortuna.altervista.org/ http://valleybeforesilicon.blogspot.com/
http://sp-layouts.blogspot.com/
Walnut Creek
This is perhaps my favorite San Ramon Branch picture, looking north at Walnut Creek. Trackage consisted of two double-ended sidings, one on each side of the main track. This photo shows a Mogul switching the house track in the early 1950s. The house track had a crossover just north of the combiation freight/passenger station, and just beyond that were a couple of warehouses. The siding opposite served, at least, an aggregate dealer (partially pictured) which undoubtedly received materials from Kaiser's Pleasanton quarries twenty miles distant to the south. The local utility company also appears to be making use of the SP, given all those poles and wire/cable drums.
Mark Pierce
I have to agree with Enzo
Though I knew nothing about this railroad before, this post has been very interesting and have enjoyed the read.
Dave
Working on the chainsaw
My how things change
Thanks for sharing a treasure. I know the depot survives as a restaurant but has been relocated. Apparently the entire ROW from Clyde to Pleasanton has been preserved as a reginal trail/multi-use path but do you know exactly where in Walnut Creek the depot was originally?
Since starting the post I did a bit homework and found these three interesting sites.
http://www.ebparks.org/parks/trails/iron_horse - The Iron Horse Trail
http://www.museumsrv.org/ Museum of the San Ramon Valley
http://cowellhistoricalsociety.org/html/trains.html Trains of Concord and Cowell
Of course we are still after the Holy Grail of Model Railroad research - track diagrams.
Aran Sendan