Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad

Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad
The Petaluma & Santa Rosa Railroad Station in downtown Santa Rosa.
Overview
Type	interurban
Status	dismantled
Locale	Sonoma County, California
Route map MacDonald 23.8 mi 38.3 km Forestville 23.4 mi 37.7 km Santa Rosa Battle of Sebastopol Road 22.6 mi 36.4 km Stop 45 20.9 mi 33.6 km Graton 20.2 mi 32.5 km Leddy Powerhouse 16.7 mi 26.9 km Sebastopol 14.9 mi 24 km Alten 13.2 mi 21.2 km Cunningham 11.3 mi 18.2 km Turner 10.9 mi 17.5 km Orchard 10.4 mi 16.7 km Two Rock 9.6 mi 15.4 km Quary 9.4 mi 15.1 km Roblar 7.9 mi 12.7 km Stony Point 7.7 mi 12.4 km Cherry 5.1 mi 8.2 km Liberty 3.6 mi 5.8 km Denman 0 mi 0 km Petaluma San Francisco This diagram:

Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad was a 600 volt DC electric interurban railway in Sonoma County, California, United States. It operated between the cities of Petaluma, Sebastopol, Forestville, and Santa Rosa. A company-owned steamboat provided service between Petaluma and San Francisco.

The portions of the original right-of-way have been acquired by Sonoma County government for the West County Trail, managed by the Sonoma County Regional Parks Department. A portion of the original right-of-way can be found along the waterfront in Petaluma. There are plans to re-activate this line to become a trolley line once again.

From south to north:

The Petaluma and Santa Rosa line followed Sebastopol Road approaching Santa Rosa from Sebastopol. The construction crew needed to cross the north-south steam railroad to reach downtown Santa Rosa. The steam railroad had operated a parallel branch line from Santa Rosa to Sebastopol since 1890, and would not consent to the crossing allowing a new competitor to offer direct service downtown. Trolley service began to the west side of the crossing on 29 November 1904. Rails were laid on the east side of the steam railroad tracks, and an electric wire was strung overhead in preparation for installing the crossing. A crossing was prefabricated in Sebastopol and loaded on a flat car pushed to the crossing location, but when the interurban crew arrived to install the crossing on 3 January 1905, they found a pair of steam locomotives on either side of the crossing fitted with steam nozzles to spray hot water on anyone approaching the crossing site. The interurban construction crew retreated.

The following day the regularly scheduled interurban car #57 arrived secretly carrying the construction crew. Before the steam railway could respond, the crew laid a temporary track across and over the steam rails and had a team of horses pull trolley #57 across to serve downtown Santa Rosa. The steam railroad then obtained a temporary injunction from a San Francisco judge prohibiting installation of the crossing. For a few weeks, passengers from Sebastopol were required to depart their arriving trolley and walk over the steam railroad to reboard trolley #57 for the remainder of the trip.