Greetings family, friends and train buddies! This postcard inspired vignette is little local history about railroad piers that once extended into San Francisco Bay from Oakland and Alameda.   Enjoy!

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POSTCARDS OF THE PAST

KEY ROUTE PIER, OVER 17,000 FT.LONG

LONGEST IN THE WORLD, OAKLAND CAL.

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The Alameda Terminal and Wharf was the original western terminus of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 and where San Francisco bound passengers transferred from the wharf at the foot of Pacific Avenue to ferries in order to complete their trip. The Alameda Mole began operations in 1876 connecting ferry passengers from San Francisco to Santa Cruz on the South Pacific Coast narrow gauge railroad. Additional wharves and piers were constructed through the years to lengthen rail service and shorten the slower and more expensive ferry portion of the trip.The Oakland Long Wharf extended 11,000 feet towards the San Francisco Ferry Building from the foot of Seventh Street and Western Pacific operated a Mole from 1910 until 1933. Out distancing all others and serving an extensive network of East Bay trolley lines, the Key System trestle extended 3-1/4 miles into the bay, just short of “Goat Island “ (now Yerba Buena Island) shortening the ferry portion of the bay crossing to just over 2-3/4 miles. Through the years Key System operated a fleet of passenger ferries including the Yerba Buena, Peralta, San Leandro, Hayward, and Sierra Nevada between the Key Route Pier and the San Francisco Ferry Building until the completion of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 1939. The lower deck of the newly completed Bay Bridge contained westbound lanes for commercial vehicles as well as the Key Systems duel track bay crossing to the San Francisco Transbay Terminal. “Bridge Units” consisting of articulated cars sharing a central truck with several of these pairs joined to make up trains operating on 600 volts of direct current picked up from a third rail. Initially the cars were painted orange and silver with gray roofs for aerial camouflage but were repainted Key Systems familiar yellow and green after World War II. The decades long rich history of transbay rail service on the Bay Bridge ended in 1958 with the implementation of motor coaches.

From the postcard collection of Bill Ralph