trains

Benicia-Martinez Railroad Bridge

After sketching some Bay Area railroad ferry history, I wanted to sketch the 1930 railroad bridge that killed off the ferry between Benicia and Port Costa.

As rail traffic increased (both passenger and freight) and the rail ferries aged and needed repair or replacement, this caused more delays on the Overland Route (not to mention delays caused by fog). Southern Pacific looked into building another ferry but soon realized that a rail bridge spanning the strait was the best solution.

The railroad bridge was built for Southern Pacific Railroad between the years 1928 to 1930.

The bridge is impressive because it is the second longest railroad bridge (5,603 ft 6in long) in the country and the longest west of the Mississippi.

The railroad bridge is now flanked to two automobile bridges that cross the Carquinez Strait. One span was built in 1962 while the other completed in 2007.

The longest railroad bridge west of the Mississippi.

Because the bridge is relatively low to the water, 70 feet in fact, a midsection is a drawbridge that allows tall ships to pass through the strait. When the drawbridge is opened, it gives passing ships 135 feet of clearance.

Five locomotives are on point of this Union Pacific westbound mixed consist freight as it comes onto the bridge. This long freight train would take quite a few ferry passages to shuttle across the strait before the bridge was built in 1930. Modern freight trains can be one to two miles long.
There were quite a few car carriers on the consist. The area on the Benicia side is new car transfer point.

Foamer at the Bridge

On a Sunday morning I headed up to the northern side of the Benicia- Martinez Railroad Bridge to the vista point, flanked by the two road bridges, to watch some trains transit the historic bridge.

The view southeast from Vista Point. The railroad bridge is in the middle. The newer road bridge (2007) is on the left, the other (1962) is on the right.
A northbound Capital Corridor train number 720 crossing the bridge. This trains’s final destination is Sacramento.
The good thing about the Vista Point is that you can see northbound trains approaching across the Carquinez Strait like California Zephyr train number 6 running three minutes late. Once the train departs Martinez it will cross the bridge about four minutes later.
California Zephyr Number 6 crossing the bridge. Next stop Davis.
I have yet to cross the bridge on the Zephyr as I usually board the train further north in Colfax.
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CalTrain Electric

On a recent Saturday morning I had a pleasant surprise as I drove north on El Camino Real at San Carlos. At San Carlos Station was one of the new electric CalTrain sets.

The new trains are built by Stadler, a Swiss-based train manufacturer. The company was founded in 1942 and is headquartered in Bussnang, Switzerland. The company has a factory in Salt Lake City, where Stadler will build 24 train sets for Caltrain.

The train sets are known as BEMUs which stands for battery-equipped electric multiple unit.

I parked, thinking that the train would surely have left the platform by the time I walked to the station but as I walked down San Carlos Avenue, the train was still stationary at the station.

As I crossed El Camino, a placard stated “No Train Service”. The line was closed all weekend.

The line was closed from San Francisco to San Jose so Caltrain could test eight of the new electric train sets. The electrification of the line started in 2017 and electric trains are scheduled to start running on September 21, 2024.

If you think of some of the most iconic passenger trains in modern rail: Japan’s Shinkansen (“Bullet Train”), France’s TGV, Eurostar, Amtrak’s Acela, Chinese Railways CRH, the Bay Area rail corridor was finally being electrified to catch up with the rest of the world, although it would not come close the top speeds of modern Shinkansen (186 mph).

Three quarters of the world’s passenger service are powered by electricity. About time!

This is what powers the new train sets: the pantograph that delivers power from the wires above to the train set below.
Not sure if these new trains sets earn any style points. They look like a large streetcar or tram.