Napa Valley Railroad (1864-1869)
| Locale | Vallejo - Sacramento - Napa - Calistoga - Davis - Marysville |
|---|---|
| Dates of operation | 1865–1876 |
| Successor | Central Pacific Railroad |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California |
The California Pacific Railroad Company was incorporated in 1865 at San Francisco, California as the California Pacific Rail Road Company. It was renamed the California Pacific Railroad Extension Company in the spring of 1869, then renamed the California Pacific Railroad later that same year. The railroad was constructed just months prior to the completion of the Central Pacific/Union Pacific Transcontinental Railway.
The railroad ran from Sacramento to Vallejo and thence via passenger ferryboat to San Francisco. 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 the Southern Pacific.
Amtrak's Capitol Corridor follows the original Cal-P Line from Sacramento to Suisun/Fairfield on its way to Oakland and San Jose.
While the transcontintal railroad was the first railway line to cross the U.S., it wasn't truly a transcontinental line because it terminated at Sacramento, short of the Pacific destination of San Francisco.
The first truly transcontinental railroad was through , over Altamont Pass and thence via Niles Canyon to the San Francisco Bay Area, a distance of 140 miles (230 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 in 1869. (This railroad is unrelated to the Western Pacific Railroad (of 1916) that ran to Salt Lake City via the Feather River Canyon.)
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Wikipedia