Sacramento Northern

8.5x11, cloth with dust jacket. "The Sacramento Northern Railway was one of America's great electric interurban railways, offering almost any service and experience that the traveler might desire: high-speed trains, dining and parlor cars, and local streetcars. The SN had steep grades, a tunnel, picnic grounds in a redwood grove, long trestles, bridges, a ferryboat that carried an entire train across a freshwater bay, and a spectacular ride over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. "Passenger trains of the SN were a technological wonder of the day and operated on three voltages, using trolley poles, pantographs and third-rail shoes. Automatic cab signals guided the green interurban trains over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. "From its earliest days, the SN also was a major freight carrier, using electric-powered equipment. Late at night, when passenger trains did not operate, electric freight motors hauled the agricultural products of the Sacramento Valley and the output of Bay Area factories. "Like most intercity electric railways, the SN was built by local capitalists involved in other enterprises; in this case, men who had sought riches in the reclamation projects and bountiful harvests of the Sacramento Valley, and the development of hydroelectric power. "Included here are more than 470 rare photographs, many ofthem published for the first time, as well as detailed chapters on the history, finance, rolling stock, signals, power systems and terminals. Timetables, financial and traffic data, scale drawings of rolling stock, and tickets are also included and, in one chapter, the reader takes a ride on the Sacramento Northern in the mid-1930s. Maps were drawn especially by Seattle cartographer Wayne Hom, with an endsheet map by John Signor. Altogether, this is a rich and rewarding account of railroad history and operation."