Santa Fe Railroad Tugboats - Barge Routes

Barge Routes

There were many routes across the bay over the years. At the height of freight ferry operations, Santa Fe tugs and barges called at many slips around the bay. A slip at the foot of Alice St. in Oakland served isolated Santa Fe industrial trackage. Across the Oakland estuary, a slip at the foot of Sherman St. in Alameda, California, where short line Alameda Belt Line (owned half and half by Western Pacific Railroad and the Santa Fe Railroad) received cars from its parent roads. This slip was abandoned around 1970, and thereafter, Southern Pacific Railroad delivered Alameda Belt Line cars via their Fruitvale lift bridge in Oakland. Santa Fe tugs also served the State Belt Railroad's slip at Pier 43 in San Francisco, and the Northwestern Pacific Railroad's slip at Tiburon in Marin County.

The final route for the cross-bay service went from the ferry slip in Richmond, California on the east side of the bay to China Basin on the west side of the bay. China Basin is on the San Francisco Peninsula just south of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge. The 10.4-mile (16.7 km) voyage usually took about an hour and twenty minutes each way.

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