The Northern Railway was a

non-operating subsidiary In the United States, a paper railroad is a company in the railroad business that exists "on paper only": as a legal entity which does not own any track, locomotives, or rolling stock. In the early days of railroad construction, paper railroads h ...

of the

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 ...

during the 19th century, created primarily as a device to consolidate the management of a number of smaller subsidiary railroads. The initial railroad opened in 1876 from

Woodland, California Woodland is a city in and the county seat of Yolo County, California, located approximately northwest of Sacramento, California, Sacramento, and is a part of the Sacramento metropolitan area. The population was 61,032 at the 2020 United States ...

, to Williams; and extended to

Willows Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist so ...

in 1878, and to Tehama in 1882. In 1877, a line of the Northern Railway was built between

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

and Martinez. By the time of its 1898 merger into Southern Pacific, it also controlled the Winters and Ukiah Railway, the Woodland, Capay and Clear Lake Railroad, the West Side and Mendocino Railroad, the Vaca Valley and Clear Lake Railroad, the

San Joaquin and Sierra Nevada Railroad The San Joaquin and Sierra Nevada Railroad (or ''Rail Road'') was originally built as a Narrow gauge railway, narrow gauge that ran from Bracks Landing (10.6 miles west of Woodbridge on the San Joaquin Delta, on the Brack Tract on the east side o ...

, the Sacramento and Placerville Railroad, the Shingle Springs and Placerville Railroad, the

Santa Rosa and Carquinez Railroad The Santa Rosa and Carquinez Railroad was completed in 1888 from a terminal rail yard in Santa Rosa, California, through the Valley of the Moon to Sonoma, and then south through Schellville and east across the northern San Francisco Bay wetlands ...

, the Amador Branch Railroad, and the

Berkeley Branch Railroad The Berkeley Branch Railroad was a long branch line of the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) from a junction in what later became Emeryville called "Shellmound" to what soon became downtown Berkeley, adjacent to the new University of California ca ...

Sources

Predecessors of the Southern Pacific Transportation Company Defunct California railroads Railway companies established in 1871 Railway companies disestablished in 1898 {{California-transport-stub