San Francisco & North Pacific RR Ad 1887

1893 Poor's San Francisco and North Pacific Railway

San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad (SF&NP) provided the first extensive

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in E ...

rail service to

Sonoma County Sonoma County () is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 488,863. Its county seat and largest city is Santa Rosa. It is to the north of Marin County and the south of Mendocino ...

and became the southern end of the regional

Northwestern Pacific Railroad The Northwestern Pacific Railroad is a regional shortline railroad utilizing a stretch of the 271 mile mainline between Schellville and Windsor with freight and Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) commuter trains. Formerly, it was a r ...

. Although first conceived of by Asbury Harpending, who had even obtained many of the right of ways, the SF & NP was bought and subsequently constructed by Peter Donahue, who drove the first spike on August 30, 1869. Sonoma County's first standard-gauge railroad, operated by the Sonoma County Railroad Company, was the 1-mile (1.6-km) Petaluma and Haystack Railroad connecting the city of Petaluma with ferry service to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

from Haystack Landing on the Petaluma River in 1864. Petaluma and Haystack coaches were pulled by horses after the locomotive exploded on 27 August 1866. SF&NP began construction from Petaluma northward in 1869, but inability to make satisfactory arrangements with the City of Petaluma caused the railroad to establish a new southern ferry terminus on the Petaluma River at Donahue Landing. Service was extended north to

Santa Rosa Santa Rosa is the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish name for Saint Rose. Santa Rosa may also refer to: Places Argentina * Santa Rosa, Mendoza, a city * Santa Rosa, Tinogasta, Catamarca * Santa Rosa, Valle Viejo, Catamarca *Santa Rosa, La Pampa * S ...

in 1870, and Cloverdale in 1872. The Fulton and Guerneville Railroad was formed in 1874 to build a SF&NP branch from Fulton to Guerneville on the Russian River. The branch was completed in 1877. In 1879, the SF&NP was extended south through Petaluma to San Rafael in

Marin County Marin County is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is acros ...

. The San Francisco and San Rafael Railroad was formed in 1882 to extend the SF&NP south another to a new ferry landing in Tiburon. SF&NP ferry terminal facilities were moved to Tiburon in 1884; and Donahue Landing faded into the rural countryside. The Cloverdale and Ukiah Railroad was formed in 1886 to extend the SF&NP north to Ukiah in

Mendocino County Mendocino County (; ''Mendocino'', Spanish for "of Mendoza) is a county located on the North Coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 91,601. The county seat is Ukiah. Mendocino County consists whol ...

. Service began to Ukiah in 1889. The Santa Rosa, Sebastopol and Green Valley Railroad was formed in 1889 to build a SF&NP branch from

Sebastopol Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...

. The branch was completed in 1890. The California Northwestern Railway Company was formed in 1898 as part of

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 ...

ambitions to reach the redwood lumber mills around

Humboldt Bay Humboldt Bay is a natural bay and a multi-basin, bar-built coastal lagoon located on the rugged North Coast of California, entirely within Humboldt County, United States. It is the largest protected body of water on the West Coast between S ...

. SF&NP struggled through the panic of 1893, and was leased by the California Northwestern in 1898. California Northwestern oversaw eastward connections to the

and northward extension to Willits before merger into the

in 1907.

Locomotives

Sources

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:San Francisco North Pacific Railroad Defunct California railroads History of Sonoma County, California History of the San Francisco Bay Area History of Marin County, California Transportation in Mendocino County, California Transportation in Marin County, California Transportation in Sonoma County, California Predecessors of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Railway companies established in 1869 Railway companies disestablished in 1889 Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in California National Register of Historic Places in Marin County, California 1869 establishments in California