East Bay Electric Lines - Equipment

Equipment

Electrical power at 1200 volts DC was supplied by the SP's power plant on the east side of the Tidal Canal along Fruitvale Ave. Substations were at Thousand Oaks, West Oakland and the power plant. The trains and streetcars used pantographs to obtain electrical power from overhead catenary wires. The equipment was maintained at the Alameda Shops, located at West Alameda, on the Oakland Estuary. During bridge operation routine maintenance was performed at a shop in the Bridge Yards.

The large steel cars, 73 ft. long, were moderately heavy in overall weight but low in weight per passenger due to their huge capacity 3-2 seating, giving a maximum of 116 passengers. At first they were painted in standard railroad olive green, but were soon painted a bright red and became known as the "red trains" or "big red cars". The first group of cars arrived in 1911 from the American Car and Foundry Company (ACF) and consisted of 40 powered passenger coaches (motors), 25 powered combination baggage-passenger cars (combos), and 50 unpowered passenger coaches (trailers), some with train controls and some without. They had large rectangular end windows, which proved to be a liability for train crews in accidents. These windows were replaced by smaller, distinctive round windows, or "owl-eyes", similar to but larger than those of the Pennsylvania Railroad's MP54 cars, in all cars except for trailers without train controls, which could not be used at the ends of trains. The second group of cars arrived in 1912 from the Pullman Company and consisted of 10 motors, 4 combos, and 2 powered baggage-express cars (box motors), all with round end windows. The third group of cars arrived in 1924 from the St. Louis Car Company and consisted of 6 motors with round end windows, bringing the total number of cars for ferry-train service to 147.

The usual operating practice was that the number of powered cars in a train was at least one more than the number of trailers. Trailers, with or without train controls, were always placed in the middle of trains; train controls on trailers were mainly used in assembling or disassembling trains. As ridership declined and trains became shorter, trailers were primarily used only during rush hour. Combos were used to carry checked baggage to and from main-line trains at Oakland Pier and to deliver bundled newspapers. They were usually put on the end of the train toward Oakland Pier, and most commonly on the 7th St Line as far as Havenscourt or Seminary Avenue. When plans for longer routes were not implemented, 21 of the ACF combos were changed to motors at the time they received their round end windows in the 1920s. Due to the heavy grades on the Bay Bridge, 10 trailers were changed to motors in 1938 when all the passenger-carrying cars were modified with automatic train control and other safety equipment for bridge operation. The California Toll Bridge Authority (TBA) funded these changes and received title to 58 cars in return. All cars carried the name "Southern Pacific Lines" until Bay Bridge service began, when the IER-owned cars were repainted with "Interurban Electric Railway Company".

In addition to the large cars already described, the SP took delivery in 1912 of 20 streetcars from the Pullman Company for its Oakland-Alameda streetcar line. In 1913 it found that they had too many of these cars so they shipped 10 of them to the Pacific Electric (PE). By 1919 patronage had grown so the SP recalled two of the cars from PE.