predecessor to bart

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back in the fifties/sixties before the creation of bart, what was the transit authority called? a man with the last name of mcbride was the director, president or whatever the correct title was. can you please tell me what this organization was called? who was mr. mcbride? where can i find out more complete information about the man as well as the trasit entity?

-- william j. smart (wjsmart@fresno.k12.ca.us), February 19, 1998

Answers

There was no central transit authority before BART that covered as many Bay Area counties. Instead, a multitude of private and publicly owned transit systems dotted the City and its environs: Market Street Railway, Sutro Railroad Company, Ferries and Cliff House Railroad, Southern Pacific Ferries, United Railroads, Key System, Northwestern Pacific Rail Road, and many, many more. The largest in San Francisco itself was the Municipal Railway, now known as MUNI.

You might try one of the local railway historical societies for detailed information on the individual you refer to, but I couldn't find his name in my few railroad books.

-- anon (anon@post.com), February 19, 1998.


Isn't the San Francisco Chronicle indexed for those years? You could probably unearth something that way....

-- Dorothy (leland@dcn.davis.ca.us), February 22, 1998.

Look for "Rails to San Francisco Bay," by Harre W. Demoro and Vernon J. Sappers, Quadrant Press, New York, 1992.

For two brief years 3 electric railroad lines used the lower deck of Bay Bridge with the East Bay and beyond: The Key System and Southern Pacific's Interurban Electric Railway served Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Piedmont, Albany, and San Leandro. The Sacramento Northern ran through a tunnel in the East Bay Hills and served Moraga, Lafayette, Walnut Creek and other Contra Costa towns on its way to Sacramento. A number of daily trains continued on from Sacramento all the way up the Sacramento Valley to Chico--about 180 miles from SF.

-- bob bardell (bbardell@pacbell.net), November 05, 1998.


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