Sacramento Northern Railway

It has been suggested that this article be merged with Vallejo and Northern Railroad. (Discuss) Proposed since September 2024.

Sacramento Northern Railway

A GE Steeplecab street-running in Yuba City, California in 1964
Overview
Headquarters	Marysville, California
Reporting mark	SN
Locale	Central and Northern California
Dates of operation	1918–1983
Predecessor	Northern Electric Railway
Successor	Western Pacific Railroad
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Electrification	See electrification below.
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The Sacramento Northern Railway (reporting mark SN) was a 183-mile (295 km) electric interurban railway that connected Chico in northern California with Oakland via the state capital, Sacramento. In its operation it ran directly on the streets of Oakland, Sacramento, Yuba City, Chico, and Woodland. This involved multiple car trains making sharp turns at street corners and obeying traffic signals.^[1] Once in open country, SN's passenger trains ran at fairly fast speeds. With its shorter route and lower fares, the SN provided strong competition to the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific Railroad for passenger business and freight business between those two cities. North of Sacramento, both passenger and freight business was less due to the small town agricultural nature of the region and due to competition from the paralleling Southern Pacific Railroad.

The SN had been two separate interurban companies connecting at Sacramento until 1925. The Oakland, Antioch, and Eastern Railway was a catenary wire powered line that ran from Oakland through a tunnel in the Oakland hills to Moraga, Walnut Creek, Concord, Pittsburg, to Sacramento. It was renamed the San Francisco–Sacramento Railroad briefly. The Northern Electric Railway was a third rail powered line that ran from Sacramento north through Marysville and Yuba City to Chico. It was renamed the Sacramento Northern Railroad in 1914. In 1928, the two lines combined to become the Sacramento Northern Railway under control of the Western Pacific Railroad which operated it as a separate entity. An extensive multiple-car passenger service operated from Oakland to Chico until 1941 including providing dining car service on some trains. Passenger traffic was heaviest from Sacramento to Oakland. Freight operation using electric locomotives continued into the 1960s.