Trolley Thursday 5/20/21 - The San Francisco, Napa, & Calistoga Railway

Occasionally on Twice-Weekly Trolley History, we end up finding a rather obscure railroad where information is sometimes hard to come by, so before we start I'd like to thank the close readers who scan through our writing and always help us improve our journalistic merit. I raise a glass to you all... just like I raise a glass to today's wine-country trolley! We may already be familiar with the Napa Valley Wine Train, a lunch and dinner rail service operated as a rolling luxury restaurant, but before that train came another that bore the "NAPA VALLEY" banner with pride. Despite a short and redundant lifespan, the San Francisco, Napa & Calistoga serves as another important and nostalgic chapter in East Bay interurban history, from its oddly-electrified cars to its humble and quiet end.

Railways in Wine Country

An SP train speeds through the trees in an 1890s view
on the SP's "Napa Valley Rail Road".
(Napa County Historical Society)

Like almost all of the railroads covered this month, the San Francisco, Napa & Calistoga (SFN&C) originated in the shadow of the more-prevalent Southern Pacific Railway (SP). In 1876, SP's predecessor Central Pacific purchased the independent California Pacific Railroad that ran a railway line between Sacramento and the ferry town of Vallejo, whose ferries ran all the way to San Francisco. The California Pacific also operated a railway line dubbed the "Napa Valley Rail Road", which it purchased in 1869 and ran between the towns of Napa, St. Helena, and Calistoga. When the Central Pacific purchased the California Pacific, steam passenger and freight service was launched under the new owner with an extension to Calistoga being constructed in October 1868. Aside from the modern steam railroad, much of the Napa Valley at this time was full of dirt roads with only horsecars and, rarely, motor cars to provide people with transportation. With SP maintaining a virtual monopoly on rail travel in this sector, it was about time for a competitor to finally show itself.

Their Hart(zell)s' in the Right Place

A newspaper clipping of  JW. Hartzell in later life, with his obituary below.
(Sunnyside Project)

A small detail from a larger map showing the complete
Napa "Rail Road" under the California Pacific, 1870.
(Barry Lawrence Ruderman)

That competitor turned out to be two brothers, Col. J.W. Hartzell and H.F. Hartzell. Col. Hartzell was a "railroad builder of experience" as one 1884 Belle Plaine News article described him, having served as the head of the Denver, Memphis & Atlantic Railway, as well as being a Confederate Army veteran (hence the "Col." part). H.F. Hartzell's claim to fame, on the other hand, is an April 1914 court record where he was served divorce papers from his ex-wife Myrtle Hartzell in Oklahoma. 

The two men incorporated their new interurban company, the Vallejo, Benicia & Napa Valley Railroad Company on April 24, 1902, and for the next five years significant steps were taken to both gather the necessary capital and find a new identity. The main line paralleled the Napa Valley Rail Road between Napa and Calistoga, which was secured just one year prior through a franchise, and met up with the SP at its existing ferry pier in Vallejo at Mare Island. Construction on the first stage between Vallejo and Napa began in 1903 and was soon finished two years later, with a grand opening on July 4, 1905. 

In a 1917 postcard, one of the original electric wood interurban
cars stops at the Napa Depot. Note the bow-style pantograph used.
(Unknown Author)

One year later, with electric cars now running to the Vallejo Pierhead, the Hartzells reincorporated the railway under a new name, the San Francisco, Vallejo & Napa Valley Railroad Company (SFV&NV, quite a long name anyway). The railroad was not too shaken by the Great Earthquake, as by the end of 1907 they extended the line out to Yountville and St. Helena directly north out of the town. The dirt road route was always packed with horse carts as well as the snorting, smokey Southern Pacific trains already serving the main line, but the interurban went undeterred in construction as it finally reached its terminus at Calistoga on September 2, 1908, bringing its total length to just under 42 miles of track. Interestingly, and for reasons unknown to this blog or its sources, the SFV&NV ran on a unique overhead voltage of 25 Hz alternating current (AC) at 3,300V, making it one of two California interurbans not to run on normal direct-current (DC) overhead (with the other being the Visalia Electric in Tulare County). It was also the first interurban west of the Mississippi to run on AC power, and one of the first to use pantographs for electric pickup (after the Key System invented it).

An "auto stage" meets an SFN&C car in St. Helena,
with the interurban car featuring both the "Huntington Standard"
window design and a more modern pantograph set-up.
(Library of Congress)

Unfortunately, building the line from St. Helena to Calistoga put the SFV&NV's finances in dire straits and, in 1911, the Hartzells mortgaged the railway's assets to pay off the engineers and contractors who built the line and exited the company. Under its new president and majority shareholder, James Irvine (who founded Irvine Ranch, now the city of Irvine), the SFV&NV was now the San Francisco, Napa, & Calistoga Railroad (SFN&C). 

The station in Calistoga officially opened to service on September 1912 with a golden-spike ceremony to celebrate its completion. That year, the SFN&C hosted 615,351 riders on its 42-mile route, its absolute peak ridership in its thirty-year history. The year after, however, would not be as kind as in 1913, two SFN&C trains wrecked in a head-on collision that resulted in the death of thirteen people, making it one of the deadliest interurban accidents in California (alongside the 1913 Vineyard Junction Wreck on Los Angeles' Pacific Electric Railway).

A newspaper illustration of the 1913 SFN&C wreck, with the wooden cars
"telescoping" into each other from the force of the impact.
After 1912 and 1913 saw a rash of head-on collisions with deadly consequences,
almost all interurban railroads turned to steel cars for safety reasons.
(California Digital Newspaper Collection)

The aftermath of the 1913 SFN&C wreck, showing how one car
was crushed by another in the wreck.
(SFGATE)

Notable Rolling Stock

A wooden interurban car of the SFN&C, featuring the arched, curved front
windows and arched side windows emblematic of a Niles Car Co. product.
(Unknown Author)

Compared to other interurban companies around the Bay Area, the SFN&C system was so small that it was more economical to keep an equally-small roster of cars. In its forty years of serving the Napa Valley (with some exceptions due to the aforementioned wreck), the roster held strong at nine motor cars and five unpowered trailer passenger cars. The original wooden motors and trailers were originally built by the Niles Car & Manufacturing Company of Niles, Ohio, and sported some rather luxurious features that far outshone the line's diminutive nature. These cars had full "Empire ceilings", plate glass windows, water coolers (with paper cups to avoid cholera from shared drinking cups), plush upholstery, dome lights, and even a separate room for the motorman in the car. Thanks to Westinghouse providing the hardware, the cars were capable of 85 MPH, but in reality their top speed within the city limits was a blistering... 15MPH. 

The one electric locomotive rostered by the SFN&C was this 1908
single-phase electric, which worked its whole life on Mare Island
until 1943 when the wires were pulled down due to World War II.
(Electric Railway Journal)

Napa Valley No. 100 hauling three boxcars, at work.
(Western Railway Museum)

Modern steel rolling stock did not enter the SFN&C roster until 1922, when McGuire-Cummings built box-motor 100 to replace an earlier wooden box motor of the same number. It remained a one-off car until January 22, 1932, when the Napa carhouse caught fire and took with it motorcars 40, 51, and 60 as well as the substation. The railway got $82,000 from the insurance settlement and sought to end all services in favor of bus replacement (which is elaborated on below), but the urging of local businesses and citizens restored the railroad to operation on May 28, 1932, with all services now terminating at St. Helena instead of Calistoga. 

Steel Interurban Car No. 63 poses for its delivery photo at the SF&NV's Napa Shops, 1933.
(Western Railway Museum)

For the new railroad, the again-reorganized San Francisco & Napa Valley Railway (SFNV) invested in two steel interurban cars that were eventually delivered in 1933. Napa Valley Route Nos. 62 and 63 were built as bodies from the factory and outfitted by the SFNV's Napa shops with trucks, motors, and other hardware from the original wooden cars, with both being fitted-out as combination cars with a passenger and baggage section. They also held the distinction of being the last conventional interurban cars built in the United States as, aside from the god-awful Illinois Traction streamliners, all other railroads now used PCCs for interurban and suburban service.

Buses From Benicia

Main Street in Napa in the late 1930s, showing off 
the increased presence of cars.
(City of Napa)

Unfortunately, despite the presence of these new cars, ridership plummeted sharply from its peak in the late 1900s. Part of this was due to the creation of the Napa Valley Bus Company in 1927, which the SFN&C used due to low ridership from Calistoga and St. Helena on evening train service. That same year, the Carquinez Bridge between Crockett and Vallejo was completed and made accessing the East Bay by motor car much easier than taking the interurban to Vallejo Pier. Further complicating matters was Southern Pacific ending passenger service on the Napa Valley Rail Road in 1929, plus the fire that destroyed the original Napa Shops. As revenue and ridership declined, James Irvine's bankers put the SF&NV into receivership on March 1, 1936, and the last services were rendered for the remaining year and a half. 

SF&NV No. 53, in the later "Napa Valley Route" lettering
to denote its single-service status. The thin Huntington-style
window on the front is also very interesting.
(Don Ross)

Passenger operations officially ended on September 12, 1937, when the SF&NV decided to switch to the Napa Valley Bus Company instead of keeping the stagnant, stunted interurban. The ferries from Vallejo also ended the same year. Despite this, a farewell run was organized on October 1 of that same year to finish out interurban operations to Calistoga, hosting a crowd of emotional railway enthusiasts. The next year, the farewell run was repeated with the train now running from Napa to Vallejo. Finally, in 1939, the electric railway officially came to an end as the main tracks and wires were removed from Vallejo to Calistoga. Only a short section on Mare Island remained until the advent of World War II, when newly-installed cranes made operating the trolley wires impossible. I cannot confirm this, but perhaps on one of those farewell runs, someone had the bright idea to take a bottle of Napa Valley wine and pour it on the roadbed and ballast as a libation to this now-extinct railroad.

Aging Like Fine Wine

SFN&C No. 100 at the WRM, awaiting restoration.
(Western Railway Museum)

Unfortunately, nothing much is left of the San Francisco, Napa & Calistoga as the demolition crews were very thorough in their removal. A 170-foot stretch of track was uncovered in Calistoga and preserved by the Native Sons of the Golden West, but as of April 21, 2017, this last remaining section of the interurban was removed with one historian hired noting the tracks were "not historically significant". Despite the loss of this symbol of forgotten history, three large pieces of SFN&C rolling stock survive with two at the Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista, California. 

A section of remaining rail in Calistoga, which was unfortunately removed by the city.
The rail sections are currently in storage.
(Napa Valley Register)

SF&NV No. 63, as preserved and under shelter in the
Western Railway Museum.
(Western Railway Museum)

Box-motor No. 100 and Combination No. 63 are the only real "Napa Valley Route" cars preserved, with no wooden cars, as both continued working on Mare Island following the end of interurban service in 1937. After being made redundant in 1943, the two cars were sold to the Pacific Lumber Company of Scotia, CA, with No. 63 serving as employee transport and No. 100 as supply transport. At some unknown point, the cars were sold to a private owner and remained in their possession until 1983 and 1984, when No. 100 and No. 63 were purchased by the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association and moved to Rio Vista. Today, No. 100 requires significant restoration to return to its former glory, while No. 63 is safely inside one of the WRM's carhouses, on display and in very good shape. The museum plans to return both to operation under 600V DC wire using their own spare parts. 

SP McKeen Trailer No. T-14, similar to Trailer No. 16 which was eventually sold to the SFN&C.
(McKeen Motor Car Company Historical Society)

Trailer Car No. T-14 sitting on the Ensminger Property on
Pope Street in St. Helena.
(McKeen Motor Car Company Historical Society)

The third rolling stock is also the most unusual, and certainly the least well-known. In 1909, the Southern Pacific purchased ten trailer cars from the McKeen Motor Car Company of Omaha, Nebraska, for general use all over its boonie branchlines. One of these was the Napa Valley Rail Road, which got car No. T-16 in 1909. The dinky trailer was used until 1920, then restored to service after two years, then finally sold in 1927 to the SFN&C as their new No. 55. The interurban, thus, became the only electric railway to operate a McKeen car, but not for long as the line only used it for five years. In 1938, it was reported scrapped but in actuality, it was purchased by Peter and Cora Ensminger to use as a shed for their son Wyatt and his new wife, Nettie Post, in St. Helena, CA. After Wyatt and Nettie passed away in 1972 and 2008, respectively, the trailer continued to remain at their Pope Street property until being purchased by Our Town St. Helena, an affordable housing initiative, in 2020. The McKeen Motor Car Company Historical Society of Ramona, CA, have agreed to move No. 55 for preservation with the other surviving McKeen trailer, "Cuyamaca". 

The last place worth mentioning is the original Napa Shops, which is now part of a mechanic's shop.
This building was originally erected in 1905 as the main maintenance hub of the line.
(City of Napa)

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included three Napa Valley Register articles about the SFN&C, the Native Sons of the Golden West, an NBC Bay Area article on the removal of the Calistoga tracks, the McKeen Motor Car Company Historical Society, the Western Railway Museum of Rio Vista, CA, and the respective photo credits. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found under “Motorman Reymond’s Railroad Gif Carhouse”. On Tuesday, we look at one of the smaller names of the Sacramento interurbans, the Oakland Antioch & Eastern! For now, you can follow myself or my editor on Twitter, buy a shirt or sticker from our Redbubble stand, or purchase my editor's self-developed board game! It's like Ticket to Ride, but cooler! (and you get to support him through it!) Until next time, ride safe!