Railroads
The Union Pacific Railroad (formerly Western Pacific Railroad) has an active mainline through the Canyon. The Altamont Commuter Express runs along this line on weekdays. The former Southern Pacific route from Oakland to Tracy via Niles Canyon is now abandoned, except for the portion from Sunol to Niles Station operated by the heritage railway known as the Niles Canyon Railway. This line had been the original extension of the First Transcontinental Railroad from Sacramento to San Francisco Bay and was completed in 1869 by the Central Pacific Railroad, but lost its transcontinental traffic in 1879 to a shorter route through Benicia.
Read more about this topic: Niles Canyon
Famous quotes containing the word railroads:
“Shall the railroads govern the country, or shall the people govern the railroads? Shall the interest of railroad kings be chiefly regarded, or shall the interest of the people be paramount?”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Indeed, I believe that in the future, when we shall have seized again, as we will seize if we are true to ourselves, our own fair part of commerce upon the sea, and when we shall have again our appropriate share of South American trade, that these railroads from St. Louis, touching deep harbors on the gulf, and communicating there with lines of steamships, shall touch the ports of South America and bring their tribute to you.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“We noticed several other sandy tracts in our voyage; and the course of the Merrimack can be traced from the nearest mountain by its yellow sand-banks, though the river itself is for the most part invisible. Lawsuits, as we hear, have in some cases grown out of these causes. Railroads have been made through certain irritable districts, breaking their sod, and so have set the sand to blowing, till it has converted fertile farms into deserts, and the company has had to pay the damages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)