Trolley Thursday 7/8/21 - A Brief History of the Bay Area Rapid Transit, Part 1

When the name, "Bay Area Rapid Transit", or its acronym, "BART", is mentioned to the average layperson, they immediately conjure up images of an outdated, incompatible and filthy system that anti-transit lobbyists love to use as a punchline or a warning. However, the BART is more than merely a punching bag, as it was originally one of the most forward-thinking and ambitious plans for a new American rapid transit system in the wake of National City Lines doing away with the Bay Area's streetcars as well as the best solution to the long-suffering problem of getting across the San Francisco Bay. On today's Trolley Thursday, consider this humble and passionate defense of this maligned and mischaracterized mass transit system as we look at the factors, figures, and fuck-ups foibles that make up today's Bay Area Rapid Transit.

Trolley Tuesday 7/6/21 - The Cars of the Sacramento Northern

Is it July already? I could never tell! Ah well...

Welcome to a brand-new (kinda!) month of Twice-Weekly Trolley History, where we are finishing the lead-up to the end of our East Bay story by first covering the cars of the Sacramento Northern system. Despite being the longest electric railway in Northern California, the roster list of the SN is strangely smaller than its Southern California equivalent, the Pacific Electric. However, as many canny men will tell you: it's not about the size, but it's what you do with it. For the SN, accomplishing this was not hard, as their varied interurban cars and freight locomotives helped to keep the interurban viable in the eyes of their heavy-rail overlords, the Western Pacific, right into the mid 1960s. On today's Trolley Tuesday, let's open up the Mulberry Shops and take a peek at these beautiful, noteworthy, and historic electric cars.

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.

Trolley Tuesday 5/25/21 - The San Francisco Transbay Terminal

Hello, dear readers and passengers! If you are reading this post, chances are I'm suffering the side-effects of my second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. As always, I want to tell you all to please remain healthy and safe as the country returns to normal, and be smart with your health.

Now with that out of the way... San Francisco's Salesforce Transit Center is a rather polarizing building in the city's history. Despite being designed as an ultramodern multi-modal hub for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Muni's bus system, and the northern terminal of the eventual California High Speed Rail (CAHSR), the building has had a shaky construction and opening as it spent most of its first year in operation closed due to structural concerns. While many new transit advocates both support the Salesforce Transit Center, or denigrate its organic architecture, almost all old San Franciscan souls lament the loss of what was there before, the original San Francisco Transbay Terminal. Despite being one of the most modern buildings in the city when it opened in 1939, the loss of its three major commuter rail tenants rendered the building redundant in only 20 years and limping into the 21st Century. On today's Trolley Tuesday, let's look at the history of a building way ahead of its time, but quickly left behind once the trolleys stopped running.