Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series regarding rail transit history in Sacramento. Read the first story by clicking here.

It has been 21 years since Regional Transit introduced its light rail service to Sacramento. And while the system provided obvious advantages, for many longtime residents, it also conjured up fond memories of days gone by.

Similar to today’s light rail cars, electric streetcars were no strangers to the capital city.

The genesis of the city’s streetcar history, in fact, has its roots in the 19th century, when Sacramento was barely more than a decade old.

Spark of Life
An unsuccessful venture to battery-powered streetcars in about 1888 was followed by the 1890 introduction of electrically-powered streetcars that drew their current from overhead wires, which were powered by steam-operated electric generators.

By July 1895, the city’s streetcars, which were then owned by Sacramento Electric Power and Light Co., began to be powered through electricity provided by the Folsom Water Power Co.’s then-new water power generating plant, which extended 22 miles to the Substation A powerhouse at 6th and H streets in Sacramento.

In 1896, the Sacramento Electric, Gas and Railway Co. began operating the streetcar system. And a decade later, it would be run by the well-known Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which would operate the streetcars for the following 37 years.

Eleven PG&E streetcar lines ran from the company’s car barns at 28th and N streets, which is now home to Regional Transit busses.

Something Not Forgotten
Sacramento native and current Lincoln resident Bill Jensen, 80, said that he has fond memories of walking a short distance from his childhood home at 29th and B streets to board PG&E streetcars during the late 1930s through 1940.

“I remember riding the streetcars,” Jensen said. “I thought they were great. You could go just about anywhere on them and they had a lot of good cross connections. They were only around a nickel to ride. I used to take them to meet my mother [Evelyn], who worked [as a switchboard operator] at the telephone company on 14th and J streets at the old telephone building that is long gone. I’d have lunch with her once every couple months and one of the restaurants that we went to was the White Cabin [and Golden Tavern at 625 K St.]. I thought the place was kind of neat, because it looked like a little white log cabin. I also remember very vividly riding the streetcar downtown and seeing ‘The Wizard of Oz’ when it first opened [in 1939] at the Fox Theatre [at 912 K St.].”

Sacramento native Bill Toy said that he literally grew up alongside Sacramento’s PG&E streetcars during the 1930s and 1940s.

“They went right by my house [at 4124 4th Ave.],” Toy said. “I was just a kid and the switch was just in front of the house. We could never sleep, because they’d hit that switch and go ‘clank, clank.’”

Toy added that he often rode the streetcars to go to downtown stores along K Street such as Woolworth’s, Kress, Weinstock, Lubin and Co. and Hale Bros.

“If you went downtown, usually you took the streetcars,” Toy said. “You only took the car out on weekends. It was a different lifestyle back then.”

The Competing Cars
By Dec. 31, 1928, the Northern Electric joined with another interurban electric rail line, the Oakland, Antioch and Eastern, which ran from Sacramento to Oakland, and formed the Sacramento Northern Railway.

Adding to the capital city’s electric lines was the Central California Traction Co., which was incorporated in Stockton in 1905 and extended its passenger service to Sacramento on Aug. 29, 1910. CCT cars were unique in that they included both third rail shoes for rural and unpopulated areas and trolley poles for inner-city use.

William Burg, author of the book, “Sacramento’s Streetcars,” explained that interurban cars like those used by SN and CCT differed from the type of streetcars used by PG&E in both size and the speed in which they could travel.

“Interurban cars are heavy cars and they travel faster [than the old PG&E city-type streetcars],” Burg said. “Interurbans are literally intended for [long-distance] travel, where the streetcar typically doesn’t leave the city limits or at most will manage to reach some close suburbs just outside the city. [Interurban cars] travel approximately 60-to-70 mph, which is approximately the same [speed] as today’s light rail.”

Sacramento resident Bob Blymyer, a longtime transit historian, said that Sacramento’s streetcar system was superior to streetcar systems in other small California cities.

“The Sacramento trolley system was far more successful than the other smaller city street systems with streetcars in places such as Fresno, San Jose and Stockton,” Blymyer said. “They had a much higher frequency of service and they carried three-to-four times as many passengers and the primary reason for that was transit ridership to the State Capitol.”

During SN and CCT’s operation in the capital city, these electric railway lines opened and shared a new, $400,000 station at 12th and H streets, replacing their former headquarters at the old Northern Electric station at 8th and J streets.

The two-story, Corinthian-style station, which was known as Union Station, was celebrated with a Sept. 19, 1925 public grand opening program, which concluded with dancing.

These electric railway companies continued to offer passenger service in Sacramento until their local demises, with CCT ending its interurban service to Sacramento in 1933 and its streetcar service in 1943 and SN ending its service in Sacramento in 1941.

No longer serving its original purpose, the old Union Station building, which closed as a rail station in 1941, was demolished in about 1980.

PG&E’s streetcar system was sold on Nov. 1, 1943 to a transit holding company, called National City Lines, which created Sacramento City Lines to run the local streetcar system, which operated all of the former PG&E, SN and CCT Sacramento routes.

The Downfall of the Streetcar
With the growing popularity of automobiles and the accessibility of buses in Sacramento, the number of PG&E streetcar lines dwindled to two by 1947.

These lines were the 4.8-mile No. 5 line, which ran from the Southern Pacific depot at 4th and I streets to the state fairgrounds on Stockton Boulevard, and the No. 6 line, which ran from 21st Street to the Curtis Park area and then to James McClatchy Park, or in earlier years, Joyland amusement park at 35th Street and 5th Avenue.

The final runs of the city’s remaining streetcar lines occurred on Jan. 4, 1947, putting an end to 75 years of streetcar history in Sacramento.

Electric rail transit service returned to Sacramento’s streets 40 years later on March 12, 1987, with the opening of Regional Transit’s RT Metro light rail system.