Who would believe that 75 years after they were built, some San Francisco Bay ferries are still in existence? And not just in Argentina (where the Yosemite vanished without a trace) or in the stuffed and mounted manner of the steam museum ships Eureka (San Francisco Maritime Museum) or the Berkeley (San Diego Maritime Museum). The Berkeley deserves special mention, as she still retains her delightful interior on the second deck, with art glass windows fabricated in San Francisco, just after the turn of the earlier century. But below decks and in the name of PRESERVATION, the curators have cut a boiler in half, so we can see inside (nobody alive ever looked inside a working boiler, except through the firebox door).
The Mendocino, still plugging away after all these years
The Story of San Francisco’s Steel Electric Empire
By Guy Span
Published: May, 2002
Who would believe that 75 years after they were built, some San Francisco Bay ferries are still in existence? And not just in Argentina (where the Yosemite vanished without a trace) or in the stuffed and mounted manner of the steam museum ships Eureka (San Francisco Maritime Museum) or the Berkeley (San Diego Maritime Museum). The Berkeley deserves special mention, as she still retains her delightful interior on the second deck, with art glass windows fabricated in San Francisco, just after the turn of the earlier century. But below decks and in the name of PRESERVATION, the curators have cut a boiler in half, so we can see inside (nobody alive ever looked inside a working boiler, except through the firebox door).
But back to the survivors who are not stuffed, gutted or mounted like trophy fish. In 1927, responding to the growing popularity of the motor car and taking aim at competitor Golden Gate Ferries, Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) took delivery of six “Steel Electric” automobile ferries, with three each built in San Francisco and Oakland, by the Union Iron Works. Three were for service from Sausalito for wholly owned subsidiary Northwestern Pacific Railroad (Mendocino, Santa Rosa and Redwood Empire) and the last three for SP’s service from Alameda and Oakland (the Stockton, Fresno and Lake Tahoe). While the ferries were innovative for their steel hulls and diesel engines driving electric propulsion motors (hence, “Steel Electric”), the exterior design conformed to a more traditional appearance. These vessels proved popular with the passengers and economical to operate.
But it wasn’t long before ominous plans developed to span the bay with a pair of bridges. Southern Pacific (now combined with Golden Gate Ferries) and the Key System could do little as the grand plans to annihilate the private transit infrastructure took place. You see, before the bridges opened, we had electric trains in the Napa Valley, electric trains in Sausalito, three different electric train companies in Oakland and one in Alameda. These trains met the ferries, which in turn carried the passengers direct to the Ferry Building, some thirty million a year (including the auto ferries, which arrived at the Hyde Street landing). It was a private transit infrastructure paid for with investor dollars and repaid by the transit users each day.
Then, the local governments formed bridge districts to use public money to promote automobiles. Not surprisingly, it worked (the smart money does not compete with governments), but Southern Pacific got off one last shot the week before the Golden Gate Bridge opened, by reducing its auto ferry toll from $1.00 to $.50. The bridge district directors wailed loudly, but in the end were forced to reduce their toll to match the competition. However, auto ferry service ended to Richmond and Berkeley’s Long Wharf in 1936, Sausalito in1938 and Oakland in 1939 and a 1940 advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle offered ferryboats for sale.
The buyer was Puget Sound Navigation Company (Black Ball Lines), who bought all six Steel Electrics, two steamers, the Shasta and the San Mateo and two other wooden diesels, the Golden Poppy and Golden Shore. The vessels made their way up north and served under the Black Ball flag until 1951, when Washington State refused a fare increase and Black Ball suspended most of its services. In turn, this forced the state to buy a slug of ferries for $5 million, to continue service. In 1953, the newly organized Washington State Ferries ordered it’s first new vessels, after sensibly determining that building bridges was uneconomical.
Meanwhile, the Steel Electrics continued running reliably until 1981, when they were getting seriously long of tooth. At that point, a decision was made to completely rebuild the fleet and by 1987, four of the six sported new pilot houses and rebuilt interiors. Two were kept in reserve and eventually sold, when it was determined that the smaller capacities would not justify the rebuilding costs. Of the two that were sold, both made it back to the Bay Area and one, the Santa Rosa, was butchered into offices and is tied up at Pier 3. She exemplifies the “preservation” concept of the façade; where all that matters is preserving the exterior and interior form or function have no relevance. This curmudgeon notes that our own Ferry Building has been victimized in the same fashion and even more thoroughly gutted, demonstrating a passion for mindless destruction versus sensitive reconstruction.
But in any event, the interior massacre of the Santa Rosa can be seen today at Pier 3 and visited during normal business hours. The other survivor, the Fresno, has been moved all around the bay and now resides at Richmond still awaiting development plans. This is the last Steel Electric with her original interior, including wooden bench seats and the lunch counter, although she is now in an advanced state of decay.
Back in Puget Sound, we find the last four of the original six Steel Electrics plying their trade, moving automobiles and passengers to their destinations some 75 years after they were built. So if you want the San Francisco Bay ferry experience from the days of yore (as God intended man to travel), a trip to Anacortes or Port Townsend is in order. You won’t get the bizarre museum ship experience-thank you, San Diego, (there must be something in the water supply), but you will get the waterfront reality of a ferry boat commute on a real-live working museum piece, disguised and remodeled as a “modern” ferry.
The Fresno, which today languishes in Richmond
