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Ferries Of San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay in California has been served by ferries of all types for over 150 years. John Reed established a sailboat ferry service in 1826. Although the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge led to the decline in the importance of most ferries, some are still in use today for both commuters and tourists. The Creek Route ferries (1851-1937) One of the earliest ferry routes ran between San Francisco and Oakland on what was called the "creek route". The name derived from the Oakland landing site located at the foot of Broadway where Jack London Square is today, fronting on what is today called the Oakland Estuary, an inlet of San Francisco Bay. The estuary, which in the 1800s included what is today's Lake Merritt, was the "creek". In 1851,Ford (1977) pp.18-19 Captain Thomas Gray, grandfather of the famous dancer Isadora Duncan, began the first regular ferry service to San Francisco from the East Bay. Service started with the st ...
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San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from approximately 40 percent of California. Water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and from the Sierra Nevada mountains, flow into Suisun Bay, which then travels through the Carquinez Strait to meet with the Napa River at the entrance to San Pablo Bay, which connects at its south end to San Francisco Bay. It then connects to the Pacific Ocean via the Golden Gate strait. However, this entire group of interconnected bays is often called the ''San Francisco Bay''. The bay was designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance on February 2, 2017. Size The bay covers somewhere between , depending on which sub-bays (such as San Pablo Bay), estuaries, wetlands, and so on are included in the measurement. The main part of the bay meas ...
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San Francisco And Oakland Railroad
The San Francisco and Oakland Railroad (SF&O) was built in 1862 to provide ferry-train service from a San Francisco ferry terminal connecting with railroad service through Oakland to San Antonio. In 1868 Central Pacific Railroad decided that Oakland would be the west coast terminus of the First transcontinental railroad and bought SF&O. Beginning November 8, 1869, part of the SF&O line served as the westernmost portion of the transcontinental railroad. It subsequently was absorbed into the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP). The track in Oakland was electrified in 1911 and extended across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 1939. Service was abandoned in 1941. History The San Francisco and Oakland Railroad (and Ferry Co.) was formed in October 1861 under the leadership of Rodman Gibbons and other Oakland residents in order to provide transportation to Oakland by means of a ferry from San Francisco to a small wharf at Oakland Point where passengers could take a train into Oakland. ...
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Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the names Southern Pacific Railroad, Southern Pacific Company and Southern Pacific Transportation Company. The original Southern Pacific began in 1865 as a land holding company. The last incarnation of the Southern Pacific, the Southern Pacific Transportation Company, was founded in 1969 and assumed control of the Southern Pacific system. The Southern Pacific Transportation Company was acquired in 1996 by the Union Pacific Corporation and merged with their Union Pacific Railroad. The Southern Pacific legacy founded hospitals in San Francisco, Tucson, and Houston. In the 1970s, it also founded a telecommunications network with a state-of-the-art microwave and fiber optic backbone. This telecommunications network became part of Sprint, a compa ...
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Train Ferry
A train ferry is a ship (ferry) designed to carry railway vehicles. Typically, one level of the ship is fitted with railway tracks, and the vessel has a door at the front and/or rear to give access to the wharves. In the United States, train ferries are sometimes referred to as "car ferries", as distinguished from "auto ferries" used to transport automobiles. The wharf (sometimes called a "slip") has a ramp, and a linkspan or "apron", balanced by weights, that connects the railway proper to the ship, allowing for tidal or seasonal changes in water level. While railway vehicles can be and are shipped on the decks or in the holds of ordinary ships, purpose-built train ferries can be quickly loaded and unloaded by roll-on/roll-off, especially as several vehicles can be loaded or unloaded at once. A train ferry that is a barge is called a car float or rail barge. History An early train ferry was established as early as 1833 by the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway. To extend th ...
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Solano (ferry)
The ''Solano'' was a large railroad ferry, built as a reinforced paddle steamer with independently powered sidewheels by the Central Pacific Railroad, that carried entire trains across the Carquinez Strait between Benicia and Port Costa in California, daily for 51 years from 1879 to 1930. When launched, the ''Solano'' was the largest ferry of its kind in the world, a record held for 35 years until 1914 when she was joined by her sister ship, the ''Contra Costa'', which was 13 feet longer. Design The ''Solano'' was designed by Arthur Brown, the superintendent of bridges and buildings for Central Pacific Railroad, who reinforced the ferryboat much like a rail bridge, using four wooden Pratt trusses longitudinally under the deck of her four sets of rails. She was powered by two 2,000-horsepower walking beam steam engines. Each engine, with a 5-foot bore and 11-foot stroke cylinder, drove a paddle wheel that in turn drove the ship through the water. With two side paddle wheel ...
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Carquinez Strait
The Carquinez Strait (; Spanish: ''Estrecho de Carquinez'') is a narrow tidal strait in Northern California. It is part of the tidal estuary of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers as they drain into the San Francisco Bay. The strait is long and connects Suisun Bay, which receives the waters of the combined rivers, with San Pablo Bay, a northern extension of the San Francisco Bay. The strait formed in prehistoric times, near the close of one of the past ice ages, when the Central Valley was a vast inland lake. Melting ice from the Sierra Nevada raised the water level while seismic activity created a new outlet to the Pacific Ocean, draining the lake into the ocean and exposing the valley floors. History Andrei Sarna-Wojcicki, a geologist emeritus of the US Geological Survey (USGS), estimates that the Carquinez Strait was likely formed about 640,000 to 700,000 years ago, while much of modern California was emerging from an ice age. The present Sacramento Valley and San J ...
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Oakland Long Wharf
The Oakland Long Wharf was an 11,000-foot railroad wharf and ferry pier along the east shore of San Francisco Bay located at the foot of Seventh Street in West Oakland. The Oakland Long Wharf was built, beginning 1868, by the Central Pacific Railroad on what was previously Oakland Point. Beginning November 8, 1869, it served as the west coast terminus of the First transcontinental railroad. In the 1880s, Southern Pacific Railroad took over the CPRR, extending it and creating a new ferry terminal building with the official station name Oakland Pier. The entire structure became commonly and popularly called the Oakland Mole. Portions of the Wharf lasted until the 1960s. The site is now part of the facilities of the Port of Oakland, while passenger service runs to the nearby Jack London Square/Dellums Station History The first use of the site for boats was in 1852, when Gibbons' Wharf was constructed at Gibbons' Point, westward into San Francisco Bay. In 1862, Gibbons' Point ...
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Alameda, California
Alameda ( ; ; Spanish for "Avenue (landscape), tree-lined path") is a city in Alameda County, California, located in the East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), East Bay region of the Bay Area. The city is primarily located on Alameda (island), Alameda Island, but also spans Bay Farm Island, Alameda, California, Bay Farm Island and Coast Guard Island, as well as a few other smaller islands in San Francisco Bay. The city's estimated population in 2019 was 77,624. History Spanish & Mexican era Alameda occupies what was originally a peninsula connected to Oakland. Much of it was low-lying and marshy. The higher ground nearby and adjacent parts of what is now downtown Oakland were the site of one of the largest coastal oak forests in the world. Spanish colonists called the area ''Encinal'', meaning "forest of evergreen oak". ''Alameda'' is Spanish for "grove of poplar trees" or "tree-lined avenue." It was chosen as the name of the city in 1853 by popular vote. The inhabitants at the ti ...
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Alameda Terminal
Alameda Terminal (a.k.a. Alameda Wharf) was a railroad station and ferry wharf at the foot and west of present-day Pacific Avenue and Main Street in Alameda, California, on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay with ferry service to San Francisco. It was built in 1864 and operated by the San Francisco and Alameda Railroad. In 1869, it served as the original west coast terminus of the U.S. First transcontinental railroad, until the opening of Oakland Pier two months later. The western terminus was inaugurated September 6, 1869, when the first Western Pacific through train from Sacramento reached the shores of San Francisco Bay at Alameda Terminal, thus completing the first transcontinental railroad to the Pacific coast. History In 1863, Alfred A. Cohen, a San Francisco lawyer, along with his associates, formulated plans to build a railroad and wharf to carry passengers not only to Alameda, but also by ferry to San Francisco. In 1864, he built a 3,750-foot-long wharf, start ...
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Oakland Point
Oakland Point, or Gibbons' Point, was a small promontory formerly on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in West Oakland, California. It was located in the vicinity of what is now the Port of Oakland shipping terminal. History Oakland Point was originally named Gibbons' Point, for an early American settler, Rodman Gibbons, who constructed a small wharf there. The Central Pacific Railroad bought the wharf and adjacent properties in 1868, and subsequently constructed the Oakland Long Wharf, a massive terminus for the Transcontinental Railroad.''Crofutt's New Overland Tourist''
by George A. Crofutt, p 199 (1880), Google Book Search. In the 1880s, the Long Wharf was purchased and re-engineered by the Southern Pacific Railroad ...
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First Transcontinental Railroad
North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants.Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, §2 & §3 Building was financed by both state and US government subsidy bonds as well as by company issued mortgage bonds.Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, §5 & §6 The Western Pacific Railroad Company built of track from the road's western terminus at Alameda/ Oakland to Sacramento, California. The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (CPRR) constructed east from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) built from the road's eastern terminus at the Mis ...
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Central Pacific Railroad
The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by Pacific Railroad Acts, U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in North America. Incorporated in 1861, CPRR ceased operation in 1885 when it was acquired by Southern Pacific Railroad as a leased line. Following the completion of the Pacific Railroad Surveys in 1855, several national proposals to build a transcontinental railroad failed because of the energy consumed by political disputes over slavery. With the secession of Southern United States, the South in 1861, the modernizers in the Republican Party (US), Republican Party controlled the US Congress. They passed Pacific Railroad Acts, legislation in 1862 authorizing the central rail route with financing in the form of land grants and government railroad bond, which were all eventually repaid with interest. The government and the railroads both shared ...
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