Trolley Thursday 5/27/21 - The Sacramento Northern Railway

In the process of reading this blog closely, you may remember from Tuesday that the San Francisco Transbay Terminal opened with three tenants in 1939: the Key System, the Interurban Electric Railway (IER), and the Sacramento Northern (SN). This third tenant ran only one train into San Francisco, but don’t let that fool you. At 183 miles, the SN was the largest interurban system in northern California, sprawling from Oakland to Sacramento and farther north into the Central Valley. Like many interurbans, of course, the SN was doomed to end rather quickly but, during its lifetime, the company proved itself a paragon of interurban freight under its parent company, Western Pacific (WP), enough to entrench itself in historical legend. On today's Trolley Thursday, let's take a trip along the Sacramento Northern as we look back on its history and what it left behind.

From Oakland to Sac-Town/The Bay Area and Back Down

An early Chico Electric "California Car" from 1905.
(Chico Enterprise Record)

The Sacramento Northern's origins can be traced back to January 1, 1905, when the Chico Electric Railway (CERY) opened a five-mile line running between the town of Chico (Some 85 miles north of Sacramento, along CA-99 today) and the Diamond Match Company mill in Barber just outside the city limits. It remained a small streetcar operation for a few months until November 1905, when the company was sold to new owners helming the Northern Electric Railway Company (NER). 

The NER had close ties to the Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E, who keep setting fire to California almost annually) and, as we all know from a year and a half of this blog: if electric utilities get a hold of a streetcar, they're going to use it to expand their reach. The NER accomplished just that shortly after purchasing the CER, when their promoter H.A. Butters touted the line's goal of reaching Sacramento. In late April, 1906 (just after the Great Earthquake in San Francisco), the Northern Electric reached Oroville, then Marysville by the year's end. By September, 1907, the NER finally reached Sacramento and established later branches to Hamilton City (northwest of Chico), Woodland (just northwest of Sacramento), and Yuba City (which was a hilariously short branch line) by mid-June 1913. At this point, the railway was now 93 miles between Chico and Sacramento.

The CER's first depot in Chico, with two of their third-rail interurban cars in 1906.
(Garth G. Groff, Feather River Rail Society)

The Walnut Creek depot on the Oakland, Antioch & Eastern,
photographed in 1911.
(Walk Walnut Creek)

At the same time the Northern Electric was busy building its line south to Sacramento, a different company was building itself northeast from the bay area. The Oakland & Antioch Railway (O&A) was a business venture out of San Francisco that had a goal of connecting itself to the capital, and due to this the name was later changed to the Oakland, Antioch & Eastern (OA&E) which it maintained for much of its life. The route began out of the Key System's ferry pier and shared much of its street track until the yard at 40th Street and Shafter, where the line climbed a nasty 2.2-3% grade into the Oakland Hills and even through a tunnel 3,600 feet above the San Francisco Bay at Redwood Peak. After getting out of Oakland, the line ran out through Lafayette, Walnut Creek, and Concord before coming to a halt at Suisun Bay. At the bay's thinnest point at Mallard Island, the OA&E crossed by ferry to get to Chipps Landing and Sacramento, with additional branch lines to Vacaville being added later. By April 1913, the line's goal was established as it met the NER in Sacramento.

A map of the Sacramento Northern as of 1939, just after the Transbay opened.
A larger version can be seen here.
(American-Rail)

Under the Thumb of Heavy Rail

SN No. 654 meets WP No. 922-A at Marysville Yard on
the final year of freight operation in August 1964.
(Drew Jacksich)

Unfortunately, the construction of both these lines put them in a nasty financial tailspin, as both the OA&E and the NER were gone by 1914. The NER declared itself bankrupt and went into receivership in 1914, only emerging from it with new management and a brand new name later that year. Now known as the Sacramento Northern Railroad, it began focusing itself on both passenger trains and the agricultural freight traffic that made up much of the surrounding areas it served. The OA&E remained an independent until 1920, when bankruptcy also forced it under new management and a new identity, becoming the San Francisco-Sacramento Railroad (or Sacramento Short Line). The reorganization of these two railroads, coupled with an increased freight presence in Sacramento, earned them the interest of the larger Western Pacific Railway with the intention to use the two railways as one to increase freight access into the Bay Area and maybe even co-opt the line as a new main into Oakland. 

A normal SN train, headed by Baldwin-Westinghouse
steeplecab No. 604, crawls through Oakland heading north
along Shafter Avenue, circa 1950s.
(Tom Gray, East Bay Hills Project)

As the Roaring Twenties roared on, the WP formed the Sacramento Northern Railway (Note the difference of using "Railway" instead of "Railroad", as was common in discerning between similarly named companies) holding company in 1928 to purchase and consolidate the two companies into one. As a subsidiary rather than a merged company, it doubled the WP's freight profits on paper and also double-charged customers to ship on both the WP and the SN. Unfortunately, this merger was also rather lopsided, as the OA&E (now the SN Southern Division) lacked any useful industrial customers and had been hemorrhaging lines even before the merger (with the lines to Danville and Walwood closing rather quickly), leaving the NER (now the SN Northern Division) as the more-favorable moneymaker by the time the merger was finished on January 1, 1929.

Triple-Phase Threats

Sacramento Northern No. 1005 shows off the trolley poles, poles, and third rail shoe
(on the distant truck) while laying over at the 40th and Shafter yard.
(Drew Jackisch, maybe?)

Later steel interurban No. 1019 shows off the third
rail shoe... next to a platform step. The overhead wire
suggests this location is along the Southern Division.
(Kenneth C. Jenkins, Feather River Rail Society)

One of the biggest issues between the NER and the OA&E when the SN was merged was the different voltages and pickups used on both lines. The OA&E, being constructed much later, was built to a more-conventional interurban standard, with pantographs picking up 1200V DC through a raised trolley wire. The NER, under H.A. Butters, tried to tout itself as a modern and clean-looking interurban line, so it used a 600V DC third rail over much of its mileage, including around the Mulberry shops and the Chico yards. The one exception to the rule was through city streets, where the NER cars switched to overhead electric power for safety's sake. In order to cut down on substations and keep a level voltage, PG&E supplied the NER with high-voltage AC power, which was converted through both NER and PG&E substations, while the OA&E bought its power from Oakland-based power companies like the Key System. When the SN was formed, many cars that could not triple-mode (as in being fitted with trolley poles, third rail shoes, and pantographs all at once) stayed within their constituent systems, with only a few able to make the full run from Oakland to Sacramento. In 1936, the voltage was upped yet again as the WP upgraded the system to 1500V DC, under the impression there would be less power lost over long distances.

SN's Del Paso Substation, which basically is a tiny tin shed housing an AC-to-DC rotary converter.
(Garth G. Groff, Feather River Rail Society)

Rollin' on the River

The ferry entrance aboard the Ramon.
(W.C. Whittaker, Feather River Rail Society)

By far, one of the most glamorous and legendary parts of the Sacramento Northern were its unique car ferries, the only interurban to operate them. When the OA&E was being built north to Sacramento, the biggest navigational hazard was Suisun Bay, part of a water complex where the Sacramento River widened before thinning out through the Carquinez Strait and into San Francisco Bay. At its thinnest point from Mallard Island to Chipps Landing, the bay stretched about 3,000 feet across and obviously a bridge had to be built. The OA&E's engineers planned for a massive bridge with a central-drawspan, but due to money issues a gasoline-powered, wooden car ferry named the "Bridgit" (yes, "Bridge It", it's a deliberate pun) was placed into service in 1913. Unfortunately, that gasoline engine and wooden construction ended up being a massive liability as the Bridgit set herself aflame less than a year later. As a replacement was being built, the OA&E tried to substitute ferry service using two tugboats and a railway barge, but this was deemed unstable, before having to rent Santa Fe and Western Pacific car ferries in the meantime.

A modern computer-reconstructed elevation of the SN Ramon.
(Feather River Rail Society)

The "Ramon" at work, with its later top-deck lunch room to the right.
(W. C. Whittaker, Feather River Rail Society)

On January 3, 1915, the OA&E's "Ramon" was launched from the Lanteri Shipyard of Pittsburg, CA as a more-permanent replacement for the "Bridgit". At 270 feet long, and with 11 watertight compartments as well as a 600HP gas-distillate engine, the new ferry was more successful than the "Bridgit". Thanks to its three rows of trolley wires, the ferry could handle an entire ten-car freight train or six passenger cars with room to move in or out of the ferry on their own power. 

For the passengers, a small galley and dining room was provided but not often enjoyed as the journey only took nine minutes, and more often than not the wild Sacramento Delta currents ejected the passengers' food before they could really enjoy it. 

The Ramon in later life, now hauling freight across Suisun Bay.
(Bay Area Rails)

The same currents often played havoc with the Ramon as well, as it often broke its anchors and slipped out of route with its little weedy engine. Once a year, the Ramon was taken out of service and shipped to the Union Iron Works in Alameda or San Francisco, which caused even more havoc when the SN tried to source replacements through two steam launches, "Laguna" and "Countess". Despite being such a bottleneck on an important interurban, the little Ramon served dutifully until April 7, 1954, when impending major structural repairs forced the WP to end all river crossings. She was scrapped the next day.

Freight Good, People Bad

TRAIN GOOD. CAR BAD.
In a perfect photo out of history, SN 654 hauls three boxcars along
Plumas Street in Yuba City, August 1964.
(Drew Jacksich)

Just like their other interurban counterparts on the West Coast, the SN invested heavily in freight operations to ensure their profits margins were kept squarely in the back. This was due to the age-old problem of commercial cargo degradation, where certain products transported lost profits over every mile. Passengers, unfortunately, were the worst cargo to carry for any railroad, as the profits for transporting people degraded the fastest. For the WP, the SN was a boon for freight traffic due to the large agricultural industry situated in the Sacramento Valley, and interchanging all of that helped the WP continue to support the SN as their passenger traffic degraded. 

SN No. 654 is spotted, again, now switching in Concord.
(Western Railway Museum)

Within Sacramento, freight was shuttled around on SN lines as well as WP's other interurban holdings, the Central California Traction (CCT) out of Stockton and the Tidewater Southern (TS) out of Modesto. Produce traffic centered around three main areas: Walnut Creek (which grew walnuts), Concord (the main agricultural center of Contra Costa County, which included grapes, walnuts, wheat, and tomatoes, among others), and Yuba City (which was home to the Del Monte Packing House). As the majority of the SN Northern Division was located in the sticks, this made it easy for farm customers to depend on the interurban without worrying about intense line traffic. Traffic on the streets, though, was a different story...

A basic diagram of the 40th Street and Shafter Yard, with connections to the Oakland Terminal Railway
via the Key System Line. The main repair and storage facilities are buildings 1-4, while No. 6 is the freight depot.
(Feather River Rail Society)

Just like a street sweeper, Oakland residents were told to move their cars
to avoid getting sideswiped by passing freight trains. In this 1947 view,
No. 661 attempts to squeeze right past a closely-parked convertible.
(Roy E. Covert)

On the SN Southern Division, freights were interchanged through the Oakland 40th Street and Shafter Yard. Originally built by the OA&E, the Shafter Yard was one-and-a-half city blocks long and contained not only the main carhouse and repair shops for the SN Southern Division, but also a "Less-than-Carload" (LCL) facility on 40th Street for trucks to take goods into the East Bay. A larger yard was originally planned closer within Oakland, in the Rockridge neighborhood, but local opposition forced the location much farther from the city. Any cars going to or from the port of Oakland were brought here by the smaller Oakland Terminal Railway (a Key System subsidiary), and all freight traffic through Concord, Walnut Creek, and Sacramento was handled at this location. As freight kept the SN alive through its later years of non-passenger service, the interurban company far outlasted its other East Bay rivals through practicality alone.

SN No. 1012 waits next to the 40th Street passenger waiting room
and interlocking tower on an unknown date, just before passenger service
to San Francisco beyond this point ended in 1947.
(Kenneth C. Jenkins, Feather River Rail Society)

It was because of this shocking fact, that passengers were a money hole, that SN management had to find some way out. Despite being the third tenant of the new San Francisco Transbay Terminal in 1939 and having a faster way to San Francisco for a more lucrative commuter service, SN quickly threw up its hands and cut passenger service between West Pittsburg and Sacramento on August 26, 1940. That Halloween, the last passenger train between Chico and Sacramento ran its last service, bringing an end to the NER. On the Southern Division, the last passenger train ran from the Transbay out to Mallard Ferry Pier on June 30, 1941. There, the remaining passenger cars at Shafter Yard made a final one-way trip across Suisun Bay aboard the Ramon to the Northern Division. Under their own power, the cars made their way through Sacramento to Chico, where they were promptly burned for scrap. Local streetcars in Yuba City, Sacramento, and Chico remained until being summarily closed in 1942, 1946, and 1947, respectively. Most damning was how Sacramento lost its streetcar, as the local operations were sold to Sacramento City Lines (a National City Lines subsidiary) who did the thing you expect NCL to do when sold a streetcar line.

NOW! That's What I Call "One Weird Way to Kill Your Interurban"

The Columbia Steel Plant in Pittsburg, California, later purchased by US Steel.
(Wikiwand)

A two-car SN train on the higher part of the Lisbon Trestle, date unknown.
(J.G. Graham, Bay Area Rails)

Despite the loss of passenger service by 1947, freight continued to thrive on the SN until 1951. At the time, another of SN's most important customers was the US Steel Rolling Mill in Pittsburg, CA. As US Steel provided many of the western interurban and heavy railroads with rail and other materials, the steel train contract was of the utmost importance and often heavily delayed other trains as the materials were shuttled in three sections across Suisun Bay by a very harried and possibly-listing Ramon. Obviously, a train full of steel is very very heavy, and every crew along the SN had to take care to ensure none of their trains overloaded the bridges on the line. The longest bridge on the Northern Division was the Lisbon Trestle, seven miles southwest of Sacramento and stretching four miles across the Yolo Bypass marsh. The bridge was low, about 20 feet from the soft, marshy ground it sat on, and had not been updated much since the OA&E built it in the early 1910s, which only meant trouble had to happen at some point.

SN No. 650 at the 17th & D Street yard in 1941.
(Kenneth C. Jenkins, Feather River Rail Society)

That trouble happened on Tuesday, July 24, 1951. On that day, engineer David D. Corsair and Conductor Harry C. Minium were using steeplecab No. 650 to haul 21 gondolas full of unmilled steel with brakemen John J. Dozer and W.W. Sharf. Corsair was quite the experienced engineer, knowing that he would have to slow to ten miles an hour once he crept onto Lisbon Trestle. Unknown to the crew, or possibly far from their mind, was that the previous winter, snowmelt flooding in the Yolo Bypass had shifted the soil underneath and made it even softer with the bloated water content, turning what was once firm marsh into a soft blanket of water and soil. It was this worry that led some of the SN's track crews to sail out across the marsh that day and inspect the bridge footings just in case something were to happen. By 2:34PM that day, something did happen.

SN 650 sits, in a daze, on a now-flattened Lisbon Trestle.
(Robert A. Borrowes, Feather River Rail Society)

Half an hour before, the 650 was just creeping onto the bridge at a regulated speed and neither Corsair nor his brakemen felt anything weird. As the minutes rolled on, the train was soon on the trestle and 650 was approaching the halfway point near the inspection crew. 650 swayed and lurched lightly, as all trains on old jointed rail do, but then 650 tried to be a submarine. Baffled by his locomotive suddenly pitching downward, Corsair held on tight as 650 dropped 20 feet, then the rest of his train dropped as the entire trestle went like dominoes. Conductor Minium and the two brakemen were thrown violently, completely unawares, as several hundred tons just fell like the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. The collapse was so great that it also took the trolley wire down with it, bringing it to rest dangerously on the train's right side as it had not broken. The inspection crew soon sprung into action and had the four men transported to the Sutter Hospital in Sacramento, where Corsair and Minium were both diagnosed with broken backs, as well as a fractured thigh on Minium. 

...Well, looks like California's Great America has a new roller coaster for the 1955 season.
(Robert A. Burrowes, Feather River Rail Society)

The only two EMD F units ever rostered by an interurban railway.
(Roger Lalonde)

The four men retired shortly after due to their disabilities, while the ensuing investigation by S.S. Long, the SN superintendent at the time, blamed the shifting marsh conditions on the accident. Despite promising to have the Lisbon trestle back in operation within two months, the WP instead rerouted its steel trains onto the Santa Fe. This carried the extra problem of Santa Fe wanting no electric locomotives on its line. As the SN at the time only rostered diesel switchers such as GE 44-tonners, two WP F3s were downgraded to "interurban" service to appease the Santa Fe. When No. 650 was retrieved, the locomotive's traction motors were so damaged that it could no longer operate on the 1200V line south of Sacramento, forcing it to stay in Sacramento until 1953, then to Yuba City in 1957. This incident also (indirectly) forced the Ramon into retirement, as the SN management worried that if a steel train could flatten a trestle, it could certainly flatten a ferry. 

The poor "Ramon" is nearly listing to starboard in the late 1940s/early 1950s
as it brings a diesel-hauled freight towards the ferry pier.
(Western Railway Museum)

SN No. 653 hauls the Zephyrette through Yuba City on April 10, 1965.
(Drew Jacksich)

The final nail in the coffin was the closure of the line between Sacramento and Chipps Landing, despite the Lisbon Trestle being reconstructed by April 6, 1954, due to a diminishing customer base. With dieselization beginning in 1941 and continuing into the 1950s, the WP saw no use for the SN to remain electrified and began a swift system of bringing the wires down. The Shafter Yard closed and was returned to the city for use as a housing development, while the electrified city tracks in Sacramento and Chico were pulled down. By 1960, only the Yuba City branch was left electrified, with the one highlight being a Zephyrette Rail Diesel Car (RDC) excursion with Steeplecab No. 653 pulling it from the Feather River into Yuba City proper. The wire came down in Yuba City on April 10, 1965, after a small caboose excursion between Marysville and Yuba City. After closure, the WP clipped away at redundant SN sections, especially those in big competition to agricultural trucks, and the name eventually disappeared altogether in 1983 after the Union Pacific purchased the WP.  

And so it went.
In April 1965, the California Zephyr heads westbound towards Oakland
past SN No. 654 at Marysville yard.
(Drew Jacksich)

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included "Interurban Special No. 9 - Sacramento Northern" by Ira L. Swett and Interurban Press, the Feather River Rail Society's many pages on the Sacramento Northern, the Western Railway Museum of Rio Vista, CA, and all of the photo credits provided. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found under “Motorman Reymond’s Railroad Gif Carhouse”. On Tuesday, we break into Mulberry Shops and admire all of the unique cars, special trains, and preserved artifacts of the Sacramento Northern. 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!