Nostalgia & History > Traction Action: Oakland, Calif., the B-line

File these in your nostalgia bank. The leisurely way to cross the bay in the 1950s.

Photo 1. Known as "bridge trains" because they ran across San Francisco Bay. (Today, BART speeds under the bay.) Taken from a westbound train, the photo shows an eastbound B-train headed to Oakland just leaving the Bay Bridge at the Mole crossover. Third rail territory here. The lower deck at that time was for trucks and buses only with automobiles permitted during rush hours with three signaled lanes. The road at left is empty due to a lull in traffic; there are no traffic lulls anymore. Speed limit on the road was 35; same for the trains running on a green cab signal. At right is part of the Port of Oakland. That's the way it was. Today that bridge is being dismantled replaced by a new span.

Photo 2. In west Oakland a San Francisco bound B-train rolls along a well landscaped right of way after leaving West Grand Avenue at Magnolia St. In two blocks the tracks will join those of the "A" line at the Poplar Junction interlocking. From the "railfan seat" the scenery was absolutely fascinating. Electric freight motors once served industries here on the Oakland Terminal Railway. W. Grand is a busy street today and much wider than back in the 1950s.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/15 00:39 by stash.

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So why did they get rid of the Key? San Francisco's MUNI held on somehow and has now expanded taking over State Belt routes and what not. Why is that?

atsf19455 Wrote:

> So why did they get rid of the Key?

The "they" that owned Key System at the end was National City Lines, a private entity that was much more interested in running buses than trains.  Key System itself didn't disappear in 1958 - "they" just replaced the last of the trains with more buses.  It wasn't until 1960 that the publicly-owned Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District ("AC Transit") bought out the rubber-tired remains of the Key System Transit Lines.

http://www.actransit.org/wp-content/uploads/03-06.pdf

> San Francisco's MUNI held on somehow and has now
> expanded taking over State Belt routes and what
> not. Why is that?

Since its beginnings in the first decades of the 20th Century, the San Francisco Municipal Railway was publically owned ("they" is "us"), so it managed to weather the increasingly unprofitable business of moving people better than private, for-profit transit companies did.

atsf19455 Wrote:
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> So why did they get rid of the Key? San
> Francisco's MUNI held on somehow and has now
> expanded taking over State Belt routes and what
> not. Why is that?

Not an expert, but the way I see it, apples and oranges. 

Muni is public run, and receives public money. And they didn't take over State Belt trackage. Basically, they built new trackage where State Belt trackage used to be. 

Key was private run. 

Stash:

Please keep posting your Key System pictures and more often if possible.  I really enjoy seeing the Bay Area in the '40's and '50's.

Steve

I once heard a story that "they" -NCL- almost pulled off buying the MunRy from the City and County. Although it came from shop people at Elkton, it was probably just one of those urban rumors.

The 187 has held up quite well after all its years of service. Actually, the articulated unit has been on the Western Railway Museum track longer than it worked for the Key System. My photo was taken quite a few years ago.

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Removal of the Key tracks on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was key to making both decks one-way traffic; this was "progress".
Those track never carried the number of passenger envisioned, the SP Electrics were abandoned shortly after the SP switched from ferry to bridge operation for their commuters.
Part of the reason for the poor ridership is that the rail lines were not open for revenue traffic for quite some time after the highway lanes were open, commuters apparently found highway (auto or bus) worked fine at the traffic density of the very early 40s.

>The 187 has held up quite well after all its years of service. Actually, the articulated unit has been on the Western Railway Museum track longer than it worked for the Key System. My photo was taken quite a few years ago.

The 187 arrived Rvj in Feb, 1988, the other two (182 and 186) in August of 1964. The 182 has been out of service for about 1 1/2 years pending traction motor repair; the 186 for around 25 years pending roof ventilator replacement and a new paint job. The 182 and 186 have been operated MU at Rvj a few times; the 187 has not.

The tracks on the bridge, Transbay Terminal & bridge approach (owned by the state) were only close to 20 years old and in very good condition in 1958  but the rest was in poor shape; the tracks and overhead dated from before 1920 or before 1910 and was at the end of thier life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/15 16:34 by jbrown43.