Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series regarding rail transit history in Sacramento. Read part two about Sacramento’s streetcars and other electric railways in the Oct. 31 edition of The Union.

Rich in legacy, Sacramento is well known for its rail history, which ranges from its world famous railroad past to its notable streetcar lines, which once strung a web through the city’s streets.

But with the many miles of iron laid for Sacramento’s railroad and streetcar systems, none is more renown than the much-heralded tracks that were set in place for the Central Pacific Railroad during the 1860s.

Five days following the Saturday, Jan. 3, 1863 announcement by the CP board of directors that work would commence on the first Transcontinental Railroad, a ground breaking ceremony was held at Front and K streets.

In attendance on this historic day was CP president and California Gov. Leland Stanford, who addressed the crowd, which consisted of nearly every Sacramento resident and others, including members of the state legislature.

Also in attendance was Theodore Judah, the man whose dream was to build the Transcontinental Railroad. Although he had located the route and had brought together the key people to create the CP, Judah did not live to see its completion.

Assuring the assemblage at the event of his recognition of the importance of the project and CP’s strong-willed commitment to its completion, Stanford said that the monumental undertaking of the railroad would result in an accomplishment comparable in importance to what the Erie Canal was to New York and the western states.

Continuing his speech, Stanford said, “There will be no delay [in the project], no backing, no uncertainty in the continued progress. We may now look forward with confidence to the day, not far distant, when the Pacific will be bound to the Atlantic by iron bonds that shall consolidate and strengthen the ties of nationality and advance with great strides the prosperity of the state and of our country.”

Concluding the ceremony, Gov. Stanford “broke ground” by taking a shovelful of dirt from a wagon and dumping it on the ground to raise the levee for the new railroad, making Sacramento the starting point of the Great National Railway across the continent.

The Little City the Could
Kyle Wyatt, curator of history and technology at the California State Railroad Museum, recently described the magnitude of the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad and its impact on Sacramento.

“The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 captured the popular attention and imagination, the way the landing on the moon caught the popular attention and imagination 100 years later in 1969,” Wyatt said.

Today, the names of the original owners of the Central Pacific continue to play a dominant role in the story of Sacramento’s railroad history.

Wyatt, however, explained that the 20th century term, the “Big Four,” which refers to Stanford, Charles Crocker, Collis P. Huntington and Mark Hopkins, can be a bit misleading.

“Throughout most of the history that we refer to, there weren’t four of them,” Wyatt said. “In the 1860s, there were arguably five of them, because Charles Crocker’s elder brother E.B. Crocker is essentially one of the associates.”

Additionally, E.B. Crocker withdrew from active involvement with the Central Pacific following his June 1869 stroke. And nine years later, Hopkins died while inspecting railroad construction in Arizona.

Although the Central Pacific made the largest historic mark in the city’s railroad past, the city’s earliest steam railroad predates CP’s founding.

Described in the Jan. 1, 1856 Sacramento Union as California’s first railroad, the Sacramento Valley Railroad was organized on Aug, 4, 1852.

Construction of the SVR, which would operate as a passenger and freight line, began at Front and L streets on Feb. 12, 1855 and was completed 22.9 miles away to Folsom.

To celebrate the short line’s completion, a grand event, which included free excursions in honor of George Washington’s birthday, was held on Feb. 22, 1856.

One of SVR’s largest accomplishments occurred on Aug. 17, 1855, when a SVR train became the first steam locomotive to operate in the far West.

SVR, which later extended to Placerville, was eventually purchased by CP, which later became the Southern Pacific.

On a side note, historic Sacramento Union articles reveal that the first railroad track laid in the Sacramento area predates the SVR. According to the July 18, 1853 edition of The Union, 2,500 feet of track was laid between 12th and N streets and 9th and J streets for a street grading project.

The Union later reported that the first “railroad accident” in the Sacramento Valley occurred on July 21, 1853, when a fully loaded railroad car ran off the track near 9th and J streets and deposited dirt several feet from its intended destination.

Jumping Tracks
Another railroad, the CP-owned Western Pacific, which was separate from a 20th century railroad by the same name, was completed and opened for service between Sacramento and Alameda on Sept. 6, 1869.

Sacramento received another line, the California Pacific, which incorporated in 1865 and reached West Sacramento in 1869. With the completion of a railroad bridge, just north of today’s I Street Bridge, the California Pacific made its way to Sacramento in January 1870.

En route to becoming a railroad monopoly in Sacramento, CP acquired the California Pacific on Aug. 1, 1871.

As part of this monopoly, the owners of the Central Pacific also acquired the Southern Pacific. And gradually the Southern Pacific name became the dominant name for all of the railroad holdings.

A new company using the Western Pacific name was created by George Gould of the Denver and Rio Grande to compete with the Southern Pacific (formerly CP) in 1903.

Western Pacific, which opened its mission-style Sacramento station at 19th and J streets in 1909, where today’s The Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant now operates, is probably best remembered for its California Zephyr train, which operated from 1948 to 1970.

The city’s most renowned railroad landmark, however, is the 82-year-old Southern Pacific depot, which sits at 4th and I streets and fronts the 244-acre rail yard, which for many years employed a large number of Sacramento’s residents.

Today, both the Western Pacific and the Southern Pacific (CP) are owned and operated by the Union Pacific.

Read next week for part two of this story.