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43-477: Beginning January 1869, the company operated a passenger ferryboat ( New World ) from San Francisco to Vallejo and thence a railroad to Sacramento . It also had a branch from Adelante (later Napa Junction, now American Canyon ) to Calistoga and another from Davis to Marysville . The Cal-P operated independently from 1865 to 1876. It was then operated by the Central Pacific and was finally sold to

86-533: A Richmond, California connection to the Lincoln Highway in 1925. Golden Gate established another route between Hyde Street and Berkeley Pier in 1927. Southern Pacific built six diesel-electric ferries and gained control of Golden Gate's Golden -prefix ferries to form the subsidiary Southern Pacific-Golden Gate Company in 1929. Another auto ferry pier operated at the foot of Broadway. Southern Pacific-Golden Gate auto ferries ceased operation shortly after

129-617: 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. 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

172-616: A branch off to Marysville. Connection between Vallejo and San Francisco was to be made by ferryboats. That same month the Company entered into contract with Dewitt Clinton Haskin to build the entire railroad. The California Pacific commenced construction at South Vallejo (west of the Carquinez Bridge ) in December 1866 under the contractor D. C. Haskin. Rails began to be laid on April 10, 1868. Two months after tracklaying began,

215-731: A dominant position in Bay ferry service by gaining control of the South Pacific Coast Railroad (SPC) ferries in 1887, the Northwestern Pacific ferries in 1929, and the Petaluma and Santa Rosa ferries in 1932. After the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1936 and 1937, Southern Pacific passenger ferry service was reduced to four routes: Ferry Building to Oakland Pier, Ferry Building to Alameda Pier, Hyde Street to Sausalito, and

258-573: A ferry to cross the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers between Mallard and Chipps. Service began in 1912 with the wooden ferry Bridgit carrying six interurban cars. Bridgit burned in 1913 and was replaced by the steel ferry Ramon with the same car capacity. Santa Fe and Western Pacific (WP) both ran passenger ferries connecting their east bay terminals to San Francisco; but both discontinued ferry service in 1933. Southern Pacific maintained

301-637: A more successful trans-Bay seaplane ferry was operated by Air Ferries Ltd. It ran from Pier 5 on the San Francisco waterfront to a shoreline barge docked at the foot of Franklin Street along the Oakland Estuary. It also operated between San Francisco and Vallejo. A fatal accident in 1933 put an end to the service. During the 1960s, SFO Helicopter transported passengers to and from the San Francisco and Oakland airports from various locales around

344-725: A railway bridge was completed over the Carquinez Strait in November, 1930. When trains reached Oakland, freight cars were loaded aboard ferries from Long Wharf on Oakland Point beginning in 1870. Freight car ferry loading switched to the Oakland Mole in 1881. After 1890 freight cars were delivered to the San Francisco Belt Railroad ferry slip at the foot of Lombard and East Streets. Belt Railroad tracks were later dual-gauged to also carry cars from

387-552: Is unrelated to the Western Pacific Railroad (of 1916) that ran to Salt Lake City via the Feather River Canyon.] The other route from Sacramento through Stockton, to Banta and Tracey Junction , thence to Martinez to Oakland, was able to avoid the heavy grades of Altamont Pass, but was 132 miles (212 km), twelve miles longer. The Central Pacific was searching for a shorter route from

430-598: The Contra Costa Steam Navigation Company and had the ferry Clinton built expressly for trans-bay service. A second ferry, Contra Costa began operating over the route in 1857. Contra Costa Steam Navigation Company acquired San Antonio Steam Navigation Company with ferries San Antonio and Oakland by merger before being purchased by the San Francisco and Oakland Railroad (SF&O) in 1865. Ferries continued operating along

473-1019: The Horseshoe Bay - Langdale route from 1964 to 1976 as the MV Langdale Queen . The Peralta , rebuilt as the MV Kalakala , operated on various Puget Sound crossings and on the Seattle - Victoria - Port Angeles route. The City of Long Beach , renamed the City of Angeles , operated out of Port Angeles and the Stockton , which became the Klickitat , operated on the Keystone - Port Townsend route until 2007. Mendocino (renamed Quinault ) and Redwood Empire (renamed Nisqually ) were retired in 2003 and scrapped in 2009. Santa Rosa

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516-791: The San Francisco Ferry Building . During a strike by Harbor Carriers employees in 1969, the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District chartered a boat to provide replacement service; the success of this experiment led the District to establish Golden Gate Ferry and begin operating service from Sausalito to the Ferry Building in 1970. Today Golden Gate Ferry operates modern high speed ferryboats between San Francisco and four different landings in Marin County . In 1973 Alcatraz Island opened to

559-758: The Argentina-Uruguayan Navigation Touring Company, renamed Argentina , and served a route crossing the Rio de la Plata . Seventeen were purchased by the Puget Sound Navigation Company : Golden West was promptly resold to San Diego and renamed North Island for service between San Diego and Coronado. Golden Bear was salvaged for parts after being damaged when a towline parted off the Oregon coast on 15 November 1937. The others went on to serve in

602-631: The Bay Area to Sacramento and was eyeing the California Pacific (Cal-P) road between Sacramento and Vallejo, completed in November 1868, which became the basis for a Cal-P Vallejo route of about 90 miles (140 km) when steamer ferry service between San Francisco and Vallejo was inaugurated by Cal-P in January 1869. In July 1871, the Central Pacific offered to buy the Cal-P, but their offer

645-615: The Cal-P Sacramento to Vallejo mainline in favor of a line diverging at Suisun across the Suisun Marsh to Benicia on the northern shore of Carquinez Strait . In October 1877. Central Pacific began construction of the 17 miles (27 km) of track across the Suisun Marsh to Benicia, but could not complete it until 1879 because of the unstable subgrade through the marsh, which required tons of crushed rock to stabilize

688-785: The City of Alameda and Port of Oakland after the bridge reopened the following month. In 2011 the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA) was set up to take over the Oakland/Alameda route and other routes between San Francisco and the East Bay , forming the San Francisco Bay Ferry system; over the following decade it added several additional routes. WETA contracts with

731-646: The Creek Route under railroad ownership until 1937. The first railroad ferries on San Francisco Bay were established by the San Francisco and Oakland Railroad and the San Francisco and Alameda Railroad (SF&A), which were taken over by the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) in 1870 to become an integral part of the First transcontinental railroad . The earliest railroad ferries ran from Oakland Point and from Alameda Terminal when Alameda

774-601: The Northwestern Pacific Ferry Building to Sausalito service. The route from Hyde Street to Sausalito was suspended in 1938 by order of the State Railroad Commission, the last ferry to Alameda ran in 1939, and the Ferry Building to Sausalito service ended February 1941. Many of the large passenger ferries were idled until World War II , when they were mobilized by the federal government to transport military personnel around

817-978: The Petaluma and Haystack Railroad in 1864. San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad (SF&NP) and Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad (P&SR) ferries connected Petaluma River landing locations with San Francisco. North Pacific Coast Railroad (NPC) ferries connected Sausalito with San Francisco, and SF&NP ferries later sailed from Tiburon . Some of these ferries operated on Northwestern Pacific Railroad (NWP) schedules from 1907 to 1938. The Napa Valley Railroad established service in 1865 and connected with ferry boat service in Vallejo, California . Monticello Steamship Company began operating ferries between Vallejo and San Francisco in 1895, and began coordinating with train schedules in 1905. Golden Gate Ferry Company gained control of Monticello in 1927 and, after merging with Southern Pacific, discontinued ferry service to Vallejo in 1937. Sacramento Northern Railway used

860-734: The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge opened. Most of the ferries were sold for use in Puget Sound, but a few were purchased by the Richmond-San Rafael Ferry Company to shuttle automobiles between Richmond and San Rafael . This last surviving auto ferry route ended when the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge opened in 1956. In 1914, a short-lived seaplane ferry ran between San Francisco and Oakland. From 1930 to 1933,

903-622: The Southern Pacific. Amtrak 's Capitol Corridor follows the original Cal-P Line from Sacramento to Suisun / Fairfield on its way to, via Martinez, Oakland and San Jose . When the transcontintal railroad first crossed the U.S. in May 1869, it wasn't truly a transcontinental line because it terminated at Sacramento, short of the Pacific coast destination of San Francisco or Oakland Harbor. The first truly transcontinental railroad

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946-534: The bay and shipyard workers from San Francisco to Marinship and Richmond Shipyards . The last Southern Pacific ferry ran between Oakland and San Francisco on July 29, 1958. Although earlier ferries had carried teams and wagons, Melrose was launched in 1909 as the first San Francisco Bay ferry built with an unobstructed lower deck specifically intended for automobiles, and an upper deck for passengers. Southern Pacific ferries Melrose and Thoroughfare were designated to carry automobiles to and from San Francisco on

989-578: The bay, including the San Francisco waterfront and the Berkeley Marina . After ceasing operations in the 1970s it briefly resumed service in 1983 before going out of business in 1986. With the abandonment of the last railroad ferries, there was a brief period 1958–1962 with no commuter ferry service at all on the Bay (though tourist-oriented service to Angel Island began in 1959 ). In March 1962 Red & White Fleet , then known as Harbor Carriers, started commute-hour ferry service from Tiburon to

1032-673: The construction of the California Pacific Railroad . For the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad project, he founded the Hudson Tunnel Company in 1873, and began construction in 1874 by digging a shaft in Jersey City, New Jersey . He had patented a compressed air method for reducing cave-ins, but in 1880, 20 workers were killed in a blowout. Another blowout in 1881 and a gradual loss of funding halted

1075-591: 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, 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

1118-508: The lower Napa Valley to Vallejo, the NVRR built a connection south to the Cal-P at Adelante in January, 1869. The California Pacific purchased the NVRR in June 1869 when the NVRR was sold under foreclosure. After purchasing the Cal-P, the Southern Pacific operated passenger service to Calistoga until 1929. In the 1980s, as freight service declined, the track beyond St. Helena was abandoned. In 1987

1161-470: The narrow gauge North and South Pacific Coast Railroads . The Key System transit company established its own ferry service in 1903 between the Ferry Building in San Francisco and its own pier and wharf (" mole ") on the Oakland shoreline, located just south of what is today the eastern approach to the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge . Ferries began serving north bay rail connections with

1204-493: The original Creek Route in 1911. Southern Pacific built new facilities to shift auto routing to the Oakland Pier in 1921 and purchased three new Six Minute ferries . In 1922, Golden Gate Ferry Company (GG) began transporting automobiles between Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco and Sausalito Ferry Terminal in Marin County . Southern Pacific purchased three more auto ferries with a ferry route linking San Francisco with

1247-569: The present main line route through the Suisun Marsh between Suisun – Benicia – Martinez. The Southern Pacific line between Martinez and Sacramento (or perhaps Oakland and Sacramento) is informally known as the "Cal-P" after the original builder of the line, the California Pacific Railroad. California Pacific purchased the Napa Valley Rail Road at foreclosure on June 9, 1869. The Napa Valley Rail Road

1290-405: The private Blue & Gold Fleet for the operation of these services. Blue & Gold additionally operates its own tourist-oriented ferry and sightseeing services; together these make the company the largest ferry transportation provider in the Bay Area as of 2022 . Several ferries that had seen service on San Francisco Bay were relocated after the bay bridges were built. Yosemite was sold to

1333-610: The public as a museum and ferry service from San Francisco began under a concession granted by the National Park Service . The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused a section of the Bay Bridge road deck to collapse, closing it to all traffic. In response, ferry service was quickly set up between piers in Oakland and Alameda and San Francisco (following almost the same path as the 19th-century "creek route" ferries). This service continued to operate with sponsorship from

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1376-503: The stern-wheel Sacramento River packet General Sutter and the small iron steam ferry Kangaroo . Service was augmented in 1852 by Caleb Cope , the small ferry Hector powered by a steam sawmill engine, and the river packets Jenny Lind and Boston . Boston burned that year and was replaced first by William Brown's San Joaquin River packet Erastus Corning and then by Charles Minturn's river packet Red Jacket . In 1853, Minturn formed

1419-420: The subgrade. A railroad ferry Solano was established in December 1879 to carry entire trains across Carquinez Strait between Benicia and Port Costa , which enabled the transcontinental trains to reach Oakland, California in a much shorter time. The California Pacific Railroad Company (Cal. P. R. R. Co.) was established in January 1865 for the purpose of building a railroad from Vallejo to Sacramento, with

1462-538: The track from Napa to St. Helena was sold to the new Napa Valley Railroad for operation of the Napa Valley Wine Train . The Cal-P also built a line from Davisville (Davis) to Yuba City/Marysville. The track was completed from Davisville – Knight's Landing on September 23, 1869. The line reached Yuba City on November 22, 1869, and Marysville on February 15, 1870. A branch line to Josephine opened in 1926. The line between Knights Landing and Marysville

1505-674: The track was completed from Vallejo, via Napa Junction and Jameson Pass, to Suisun on June 24, 1868. The main route from Vallejo to Sacramento, actually to the town of Washington, California, across the Sacramento river from the city of Sacramento, was completed November 11, 1868. The original route of the Cal-P mainline from Suisun to Vallejo is now the route of the California Northern Railroad between Vallejo and Suisun and can be seen along portions of State Route 12 . The original Cal-P line ran to Vallejo, not along

1548-597: The waters of northwestern Washington and southwestern British Columbia . After serving seven years as Elwha , Golden Shore was sold to San Diego in 1944 and renamed Silver Strand on the San Diego-Coronado route. The City of Sacramento operated on the Seattle-Bremerton route in the 1940s, then on the Horseshoe Bay - Nanaimo route from 1952 to 1963 as the MV Kahloke , and finally on

1591-581: The world's largest ferryboat, the Solano was built (later joined by a sister ferry, the slightly larger Contra Costa ), to serve the crossing. This railroad ferry actually carried whole trains up to 48 freight cars or 24 passenger cars with their locomotives. These ferries became part of the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) when it assumed many of the facilities of its affiliate, the Central Pacific. These large train ferries were idled when

1634-534: Was abandoned in sections between the 1940s (at the northern end) and the early 1970s (at the southern end). The line from Davis to Woodland was later operated by the Southern Pacific and currently by the California Northern Railroad . 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

1677-470: Was built from the head of navigation on the Napa River, Soscol, near Skaggs Island, to Napa , St. Helena , and Calistoga. It was backed by a group headed by Samuel Brannan , a Calistoga resort owner. The track from Soscol to Napa was completed on July 11, 1865. The NVRR reached Oakville on September 15, 1867, St. Helena on February 27, 1868, and Calistoga on July 31, 1868. After the Cal-P built through

1720-619: Was completed September 1869, from Sacramento through Stockton , over Altamont Pass and thence via Niles Canyon to the San Francisco Bay Area , a distance of 120 miles (190 km). That line was constructed by Leland Stanford 's Central Pacific Railroad subsidiary, the Western Pacific Railroad (of 1862) . The route over Altamont Pass was completed to Alameda Terminal in September 1869 (and to Oakland Long Wharf in November 1869). [Note: This Western Pacific (1862-1870)

1763-430: Was rejected. Central Pacific announced plans to build a parallel route of the Cal-P but diverging at Napa Junction via the Suisun Marsh to Benicia . In September 1871, Central Pacific gained the majority of its stocks and thus control of the California Pacific. The California Pacific, facing financial and expansion difficulties, finally was sold to the Central Pacific in 1876. The Central Pacific proceeded to shift from

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1806-516: Was renamed Enetai , returned to San Francisco Bay in 1968, and is preserved at Pier 3. Dewitt Clinton Haskin Col. Dewitt Clinton Haskin (circa 1824 – July 17, 1900) was an American engineer who developed the initial methods for construction of the first tunnels under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Manhattan . In the late 1860s, Haskin gained experience in California on

1849-623: Was still a peninsula. The ferry pier at Oakland Point was greatly enlarged to form the Oakland Long Wharf . These railroad ferries mostly carried passengers, not trains, although there was some ferrying of freight cars to San Francisco. When the Central Pacific re-routed the Sacramento to Oakland segment of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1876, a ferry across the Carquinez Strait was established, and

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