DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRIC TRAC- 

 TION OF THE STATE 



AS the cheap production of electric power has developed, a number 

 of isolated electric traction lines have sprung up, independently 

 of the great city systems, such as those of San Francisco, Los An- 

 geles, and Oakland, and the great interurban rapid transit roads 

 such as the Northern Electric, the Los Angefes Interurban, and the 

 Pacific Electric. For many years such cities as San Jose, Sacramento, 

 Fresno, Stockton, and San Diego have had thoroughly efficient trolley 

 service, and these installations have been followed in quick succession 

 by others in Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Riverside, Monterey, Santa 

 Rosa, Visalia, Santa Cruz, and Bakersfield. The United Railroads of San 

 Francisco have meanwhile pushed a line down the peninsula to San Ma- 

 teo, connecting the towns for a distance of twenty-five miles. The 

 intervening space thence to San Jose will shortly be completed. Con- 

 struction is progressing also on a line extending from Mayfield into the 

 Los Gates vicinity. In Marin County a thoroughly modern third-rail sys- 

 tem has been in operation for two years, connecting San Rafael and 

 way towns with ferriage at Sausalito. In a similar way the great network 

 comprising the Oakland traction system, besides investing Berkeley and 

 Alameda, reached out to a half-score of the Alameda County towns as 

 far as Haywards. An impending step of much importance is the electroli- 

 zation of the local Southern Pacific service, which will include the Oakland, 

 Berkeley, and Alameda ferry trains, and it is generally believed that the 

 "Wishbone Route," extending around the bay shore southward to San 

 Jose, and thence northward up the peninsula to San Francisco, will be 

 similarly electrolized in the no very distant future. The main suburban 

 areas tributary to San Francisco will thus have eventually a double, and 

 In the territory of the Key Route a triple, system of electric rapid transit. 

 Finally, in the development of electric traction focusing at San Francisco 

 we have the Ocean Shore Railway, traversing the west side of the penin- 

 sula, its nominal terminus being Santa Cruz. This road is already com- 

 pleted for a distance of eighteen miles at the San Francisco end and four- 

 teen extending northward out of Santa Cruz; and eighty per cent of 

 the remaining grading has been finished. Ultimately the road will be 

 extended southward, in the hands of another company, as far as Watson- 

 ville, at this point tapping the projected San Joaquin Valley and Western, 

 a steam road to connect Fresno with the ocean at Monterey. 



In its electrical development, therefore, the State of California is seen 

 to compare very favorably with the most populous sections of the East. 

 And there is this in favor of the further rapid extension of its electric trac- 

 tion lines: that whereas the East is mainly dependent upon coal or other 

 fuel to produce steam, and thence in this expensive and cumbrous fashion 

 to generate electricity, the Golden State can at any time render itself 

 absolutely independent of steam-produced electricity by drawing further 

 on its superabundant steam-power. The upper Sacramento River, with- 

 out recourse to any further source of power, can be made to yield a 

 greater electric horse-power than can be used, by any stretch of the 

 Imagination, in the entire State, for any and all purposes of manufacture. 

 Illumination, and traction. On this powerful stream twenty-five-thousand 

 horse-power can be taken off at every two or three miles, with the utmost 

 ease. It must be a very remote future, therefore, in which will arise any 

 necessity for utilizing the less accessible reaches of the high Sierran water- 

 courses. 



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