PPIE Trackage

How did all those building materials, plants, exhibits get to PPIE during construction? Transporting all the exhibits and materials to PPIE was a huge undertaking. The north end of San Francisco is surrounded by water. There were all those hills to get around on the south. At the time of groundbreaking, there may not have been any train connection from the South. And apparently this was also before trucks were used heavily for transport. Of course, after the building of the Panama Canal, nothing must have seemed impossible.

I found several articles that were written before the exposition opened, about the train system at PPIE that was used to deliver exhibits, building materials, etc. to, and around, the exposition grounds during construction. And then, of course, there is Frank Morton Todd's books, five volumes, on how PPIE was built, which was published in 1921.

In order to obtain building supplies, etc. the exposition had its own freight ferry slip. To orient yourself, see this portion of the 1915 exposition map. About 10 (12?) miles of track was laid down to move train cars from barges or ferries to the exposition buildings.

The freight slip is top right on this snippet of the 1915 exposition map. See the full map at SFPL

The SF Tunnel article talks about the tunnels that were built in SF. They say that, at first, there was no train connection to the grounds from the south. At some point prior to 1915, a tunnel was built at Fort Mason that finally connected the south trains to the fairgrounds. (It was prior to 1915, but looking for date. The SF Tunnel article gives hints, but no exact dates) Until then, it may be that the exposition relied on its own ferry slip. After the Fort Mason tunnel was built, Pier 43 could be used to bring in materials. And after the tunnel, would cargo have been brought from the south of San Francisco by land, not water? What was the relative cost of all of those routes: by ferry boat or barge to PPIE freight slip, by ferry boat or barge to Pier 43 and then to PPIE through Fort Mason tunnel, or from the south through Fort Mason tunnel?


Trackage System of Panama Pacific Exposition

(from the Railway and Engineering Review January-December, 1913, November 15, 1913)

"The Panama-Pacific International exposition nearly completed the installation of its own railway system for use in the expeditious delivery of material and exhibits during the pre-exposition period. By means of this railway, in connection with exposition's own freight ferry slip, exhibitors may have the cars loaded at point of shipment and delievered at San Francisco within the very buildings in which they will be displayed. Shipments by water will be taken by rail from the docks and discharged within the buildings for which they destined.

"The system will aggregate about 10 miles of track. It will extend from the ferry slips, at the end of the grounds, through the entire area occupied by the main exhibit palaces, thence to the live stock and aviation tracts at the western end, on the Presidio military reservation. The tracks will, of course, be standard gage, laid with rails weighing 75 pounds to the yard, and ballasted. There is a commodious railway yard adjacent to the slips east of the Palace of Machinery, with accommodations for 200 cars at a time.

"More than half of the tracks have been laid already, and they are being extended rapidly in all directions. Spur tracks will enter all the main exhibit buildings. Switching locomotives will be available whenever needed, and within a short time a number of them will be put in service. Some loaded cars have already arrived on car floats at the freight ferry slip and have been run by hand or by animal power for varying distances.

Between Feb. 20, 1915, and Dec. 4, 1915, while the exposition will be open, some of the tracks will be removed temporarily, but most of them will be buried beneath soil and driveways, or walks or gardens will be placed over them. At the end of the exposition period they win be uncovered and restored to service, for the removal of things that were brought in over them."


Here's an interesting next article that was in the same journal. I just had to include it! And check here in case you don't know what a hobble skirt is, either.

Hobble Skirts and High Heels as Accident Factors

(Railway and Engineering Review November 29, 1913)

Hobble skirts and high heels continue to be responsible for an increasingly large number of Injuries sustained by women while getting on and off trains and mounting and descending stairways in stations on the Pennsylvania Railroad. A careful record kept for the three months ending October 14 of all injuries sustained by women due to slipping stumbling or falling while on the railroad property indicates that these accidents are becoming more rather than less frequent despite the fact that the railroad has repeatedly called the attention of its women patrons to the number of accidents caused by such features of apparel. Between July 14th and August 14th 44 such accidents occurred on the Pennsylvania Railroad. The records show 42 in the next month and 52 during tne month ending October 14.

The next article was published six months later, a year and a half before the exposition opened.

To gather several millions of visitors and 70,000 tons of exhibits from every quarter of the globe onto less than one square mile of territory and then to ship them all back again to the places they came from is something of a transportation undertaking. It is the problem that the transportation companies, the railroads and steamship lines are preparing to solve in anticipation of the Panama International Exposition in San Francisco next year. It is the business of the exposition traffic department to care for the passengers and the freight after they are set down in San Francisco and the exercising of its functions furnishes one of the most interesting aspects of the herculean activities in the great arena where the United States is preparing to celebrate the greatest engineering achievement of the race -- the completion of the Panama Canal...

...It was indicated at the Transcontinental Passenger Association meeting that the railroads will be ready and will have facilities to accommodate ten times the present volume of traffic. This means literally that where there is a train schedule of one train daily now there will be ten during the Exposition period...

...In general the freight rates will be on the same basis that is exhibits will be returned to their destination free but a full rate will be charged for carriage to the Exposition...

...Freight both building materials and exhibits are already being cared for on the Exposition railway system, which is comprised of some twelve miles of track reaching from the freight ferry slip into each of the exhibit palaces and every quarter of the grounds. This system permits of freight cars being loaded upon barges and carried direct from the local railroad terminals to the Exposition grounds. A tunnel is in the course of construction which will also carry direct to the Exposition grounds the track of the State-owned belt line that communicates with the wharves of the ocean-going steamships. It is also possible for ships and steamers to dock at the Exposition grounds and unload directly, thereby eliminating the expense and debt of repeated handling of foreign freight...

JEB: They mentioned a tunnel, which might be the Fort Mason Tunnel. The "State-owned belt line" is probably San Francisco Belt Railroad and wikipedia mentioned Pier 43 was a train ferry slip. A Brief History of the State Belt Railroad is also helpful. NPS has page.

The article says that the freight is delivered to the PPIE freight slip from "local railroad terminals". Oakland had several freight terminals owned by different railroad companies.

The 1912 map of the Oakland port.

The second mole from the bottom is "Western Pacific Ry. Co".

This 1912 time is close to when work on PPIE started. The map may have changed over those 3 years or not.

These superimposing maps for Oakland, let you see where the Oakland mole is now - Middle Harbor Shoreline Park!


A SLIGHT MISTAKE

(A joke from the Railway Employees' Magazine, Volume 9, Number 6, June 1914, page 174)

In Kansas City they tell of a broker who moved from the city out into the country. He went out some distance and since the railway was poverty stricken and the service consequently poor he traveled to and from town by automobile.

After a time he decided to go in for chicken raising, and ordered a patent chicken coop. On the day it was expected to arrive he set out in a dray to fetch it from the freight office.

He reached the railway station which, by the way he had never seen, after an hour's drive. No one was in sight, but there was his chicken coop. With his man's assistance he soon had it on the dray, and set off for his home.

He had proceeded but a few rods, however, when he encountered a man in uniform, with the title "Station Master" on his cap.

"What have you got on that dray?" demanded the station master, excitedly.

"My new chicken coop".

"Chicken coop, nothing! You're carrying off Blankville Junction!"

Chapter LXIX, Civil Engineering

The story of the exposition : being the official history of the international celebration held at San Francisco in 1915 to commemorate the discovery of the Pacific ocean and the construction of the Panama canal. Frank Morton Todd. v. 1, P. 340

...The Transportation Palace had 15 exhibit tracks 500 feet long, and a transfer table 75 feet long with a run of 300 feet, strong enough to shift the largest locomotives. This table ran on seven tracks, which required the support of 600 piles.

In spite of compactness of plan, 11 1/2 miles of standard-gauge railway track, with 70 switches, and 17 acres of railway yards, wharves, and docks were necessary in the Exposition grounds. So the Division of Works hired a lot of 75-pound steel rails from the Southern Pacific at second-hand valuation, and the Bureau of Railways proceeded to build the system. It was one of the first things that had to be provided, and cost about $110,000, nearly $19,000 of which was for rental of equipment that was returned in part, and in part sold for the owner’s account. Three miles of this railway was inside the palaces, with platforms for unloading.

A ferry slip was built off the foot of Fillmore Street, on a northeast and southwest axis, as the location and position that would make it easiest to handle ferries and car floats. The slip had a three-track apron, so that cars could be taken from the floats of the various railways centering at San Francisco Bay and hauled to any part of the grounds without unloading. Cars could be and were transferred in this way from the yards in Oakland directly into the palaces. The method was not used after the completion of the Fort Mason tunnel, which linked the Exposition to the San Francisco Belt Railway.

The main line of railway ran from the ferry slip westward along the Esplanade to the race track, and back by the Avenue of the Nations and the Avenue of Palms to the switch yard eastward of the Machinery Palace, where, during the construction period, there was room for the storage of 200 cars, and where, before the Exposition opened, warehouses with 50,000 square feet of warehousing space were built.

The system having been built and put into operating form, it was turned over to a separate corporation styled the “Exposition Terminal Railway Company.” The incorporators were I. W. Hellman, Jr., Chairman of the Committee on Transportation, William H. Crocker, Chairman of the Committee on Buildings and Grounds, James McNab, Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Buildings and Grounds, Leon Sloss, Henry F. Fortmann, Elisha Hooper, at that time Auditor of the Exposition, and W. McCarthy, its Cashier. The Director of Works was General Manager. Later on, in February, 1913, A. M. Mortensen was made Traffic Manager.

The object of the separate incorporation was to avoid certain complications that would have arisen out of the direct operation of a railway by the Exposition itself under State and Federal commerce legislation, and to secure certain benefits of rate combinations with interstate railways, under that legislation. The Exposition Terminal Railway received and handled all shipments to exhibitors (a good part of the physical delivery being by truck) and provided warehousing for their goods and crates until such material should be needed; and from this service considerable revenue was derived. As the Terminal Railway was not organized for private profit, however, practically all of its stock was turned over to the Exposition which received its gross returns and paid its operating expenses.

The railway was not so serviceable as had been expected, and it may be that the next exposition will find itself able to dispense with anything more than a track to the Palace of Transportation. Twenty times as much construction material was handled by truck. The railway was very valuable for moving the exhibits for the Machinery and the Transportation Palaces, but aside from that the motor truck could probably have done all the work. At the time the Exposition was planned, however, and during the earlydays of its development, the motor truck had hardly emerged from the experimental stage. It began to assert itself as a serious factor of transportation during the Exposition year.

JEB: Good google search that surfaced these articles "panama pacific freight slip ferry"

Additional References:

Municipal Record 1915 - "World's Greatest Exposition is more than two-thirds Finished"