page_title: History of California
section_title: Railroads
hierarchical_section_title: History of California / History of California through 1899 / American period / Railroads
caption_attribution_description: English: Southern Pacific steam engine no. 1364 heads the train at the Arcade Station at Alameda between 4th and 5th St.
context_page_description: The history of California can be divided into: the Native American period; European exploration period from 1542 to 1769; the Spanish colonial period, 1769 to 1821; the Mexican period, 1821 to 1848; and United States statehood, from September 9, 1850 which continues to this present day.
  California was settled from the North by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years. It was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. After contact with Spanish explorers, most of the Native Americans died out from European diseases.
  After the Portolá expedition of 1769–70, Spanish missionaries began setting up 21 California Missions on or near the coast of Alta California, beginning with the Mission San Diego de Alcala near the location of the modern day city of San Diego, California. During the same period, Spanish military forces built several forts and three small towns. Two of the pueblos would eventually grow into the cities of Los Angeles and San Jose. After Mexican Independence was won in 1821, California fell under the jurisdiction of the First Mexican Empire.
context_section_description: California's first railroad was built from Sacramento to Folsom, California starting in February 1855. This 22 miles (35 km) line was meant to take advantage of the prosperous gold diggings in Placerville, California but were completed at about the same time (February 1856) as the mining near there came to an end. The first Transcontinental Railroad from Sacramento, California to Omaha, Nebraska was completed on 9 May 1869. The Central Pacific Railroad, the Pacific end of the railroad, largely took over nearly all freight across the Sierra Nevada (U.S.) mountains in Northern California. By 1870 there were railroad connections to Oakland, California and via a train ferry to San Francisco, California from Sacramento—effectively connecting all the major cities in California then to the east coast.
  Southern California's first railroad, the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad, was inaugurated in October, 1869 by John G. Downey and Phineas Banning. It ran 21 miles (34 km) between San Pedro and Los Angeles. In 1876 California's first railroad linking Los Angeles with Northern California was completed when the San Joaquin line of the Southern Pacific Railroad finished the San Fernando Railroad Tunnel through the Tehachapi mountains, linking Los Angeles to the Central Pacific Railroad. This route to Los Angeles followed the Tehachapi Loop, a 0.73-mile (1.17 km) long 'spiral track', or helix, through Tehachapi Pass in Kern County and connected Bakersfield and the San Joaquin Valley to Mojave in the Mojave Desert.
  Although most of California's railroads started off as short line railroads the period from 1860 to 1903 saw a series of railroad mergers and acquisitions that led to the creation of four major inter-state railroads servicing the state (the Southern Pacific Railroad, Union Pacific Railroad, Santa Fe Railroad and Western Pacific Railroad). Each of these railroads controlled one (and Southern Pacific controlled two) of the transcontinental railroads which linked California with states farther East. The railroads moved freight and passengers in large quantities and allowed the state's economy and population to expand rapidly during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
  By the 1890s the construction of electric railroads had begun in California and by the early 20th century several systems existed to serve California's largest cities. The state's electric railroad systems included the San Diego Electric Railway, Los Angeles' Pacific Electric system, the Los Angeles Pacific Railroad, East Bay Electric Lines and the San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose Railway and Interurban rail systems such as the Sacramento Northern Railway were also constructed. By the 1920s, Los Angeles' Pacific Electric system was the largest electric railroad in the world.
  The expansion of American railroads peaked in the 1910s and during the Great Depression many railroads suffered financial difficulties which led to some railroad bankruptcies. World War II caused a surge in the use of California's railroads but with the government funded construction of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s and the expansion of the U.S. airline industry passenger rail service declined dramatically.
  The 1970s saw the end of private passenger railroads in California, the creation of a national passenger railroad (Amtrak) and the Bay Area's opening of the BART rail-system. In the 1980s and 1990s commuter railroads where established in the Bay Area (Caltrain and Altamont Corridor Express), Los Angeles (Metrolink) and San Diego (Coaster) and light rail networks were built or expanded in most urban areas.
  The early 2000s saw the expansion in usage of passenger rail service and in 2008 voters approved plans for the construction of a high-speed rail network.
caption: A Southern Pacific Train at Arcade Depot, Los Angeles, 1891
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