Benicia is a city in Solano County, California, located on the north bank of the Carquinez Strait in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It served as the capital of California for nearly thirteen months from 1853 to 1854. The population was 27,131 at the 2020 United States Census. Benicia is just east of Vallejo and across the strait from Martinez.
Suisun City is a city in Solano County, California, United States. The population was 29,518 at the 2020 census.
Interstate 780 (I-780) is an east–west auxiliary Interstate Highway in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It runs from Curtola Parkway and Lemon Street in Vallejo to I-680 just north of the Benicia–Martinez Bridge in Benicia. It closely parallels the Carquinez Strait for its entire route. Originally, this segment was part of I-680 before that Interstate was extended and rerouted to Fairfield. The city-maintained Curtola Parkway continues west from I-80 to State Route 29 (SR 29) in Vallejo.
Interstate 680 (I-680) is a north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway in Northern California. It curves around the eastern cities of the San Francisco Bay Area from San Jose to I-80 at Fairfield, bypassing cities along the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay such as Oakland and Richmond while serving others more inland such as Pleasanton and Concord.
San Pablo Bay is a tidal estuary that forms the northern extension of the San Francisco Bay in the East Bay and North Bay regions of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California.
The Carquinez Strait is a narrow tidal strait located in the Bay Area of Northern California, United States. It is part of the tidal estuary of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers as they drain into the San Francisco Bay. The strait is eight miles (13 km) long and connects Suisun Bay, which receives the waters of the combined rivers, with San Pablo Bay, a northern extension of the San Francisco Bay.
Niles Canyon is a canyon in the San Francisco Bay Area formed by Alameda Creek, known for its heritage railroad and silent movie history. The canyon is largely in an unincorporated area of Alameda County, while the western portion of the canyon lies within the city limits of Fremont and Union City. The stretch of State Route 84 known as Niles Canyon Road traverses the length of the canyon from the Niles district of Fremont to the unincorporated town of Sunol. Two railroads also follow the same route down the canyon from Sunol to Niles: the old Southern Pacific track along the north side, now the Niles Canyon Railway, and the newer Union Pacific track a little to the south. At the west end of the canyon are the ruins of the Vallejo Flour Mill, which dates to 1853.
The first Vallejo Flour Mill, in the Niles district of Fremont, California, was built in 1841 by José de Jesús Vallejo (1798–1882), elder brother of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, on his Rancho Arroyo de la Alameda, along with a dam and aqueduct to power it. The Flour Mill was located at the mouth of Niles Canyon, then called Alameda Cañon, which served as the major course of Alameda Creek. A second Flour Mill was built in 1856, the stone foundation of which may still be seen today.
The Niles Canyon Railway (NCRy) is a heritage railway running on the first transcontinental railroad alignment through Niles Canyon, between Sunol and the Niles district of Fremont in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area, in California, United States. The railway is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Niles Canyon Transcontinental Railroad Historic District. The railroad is operated and maintained by the Pacific Locomotive Association which preserves, restores and operates historic railroad equipment. The NCRy features public excursions with both steam and diesel locomotives along a well-preserved portion of the first transcontinental railroad.
The Solano was a large railroad ferry, built as a reinforced paddle steamer with independently powered sidewheels by the Central Pacific Railroad, that carried entire trains across the Carquinez Strait between Benicia and Port Costa in California daily for 51 years, from 1879 to 1930. When launched, the Solano was the largest ferry of its kind in the world, a record held for 35 years until 1914 when she was joined by her sister ship, the Contra Costa, which was 13 feet (4.0 m) longer.
The Vaca Valley and Clear Lake Railroad was a standard gauge railroad that operated at Vacaville, California in the late 19th century. The Vaca Valley Railroad was incorporated on April 12, 1869 to run a branch from the mainline of the California Pacific Railroad at Elmira to Rumsey.
SolanoExpress is a public transit network of regional express buses connecting Solano County, California to Contra Costa County and the Sacramento Valley. It is managed by the Solano Transportation Authority and operated by SolTrans. The Solano Transportation Authority is a joint powers authority established in 1990 by Solano County and the cities of Benicia, Dixon, Fairfield, Rio Vista, Suisun City, Vacaville, and Vallejo to serve as the Congestion Management Agency for Solano County, as mandated by California law.
The San Francisco, Napa and Calistoga Railway, later briefly reorganized as the San Francisco and Napa Valley Railroad, was an electric interurban railroad in the U.S. state of California. In conjunction with the Monticello Steamship Company, the railway offered a combined rail- and ferry-service called the "Napa Valley Route."
The Martinez subdivision is a Union Pacific railway line which runs from Roseville, California to Oakland, California. It is informally referred to as the Cal-P line, after the original California Pacific Railroad, who constructed the line from Sacramento to Suisun and Fairfield. The line is entirely double-tracked including bridges, and features extensive sidings.
This article lists the railroads and a timeline of railroad history in Solano County, California.
The Alta California Telegraph Company was a telegraph company which operated in the mid-19th century within the state of California prior to the construction of the Transcontinental Telegraph. It was organized in July 1852, and incorporated in January 1854 and began constructing its first line that same year, stretching from Sacramento to Marysville and extending up into the foothills of the adjacent Sierra Nevada mountains. In subsequent years, a line was constructed between Sacramento and Benicia. From Benicia, a branch line was extended to Vallejo and the US Navy yard at Mare Island.
The Western Pacific Railroad (1862–1870) was formed in 1862 to build a railroad from Sacramento, California, to the San Francisco Bay, the westernmost portion of the First transcontinental railroad. After the completion of the railroad from Sacramento to Alameda Terminal on September 6, 1869, and then the Oakland Pier on November 8, 1869, which was the Pacific coast terminus of the transcontinental railroad, the Western Pacific Railroad was absorbed in 1870 into the Central Pacific Railroad.
The California Central Railroad (CCRR) was incorporated on April 21, 1857, to build a railroad from Folsom to Marysville, as an extension of the Sacramento Valley Railroad which terminated at Folsom. The first division of the CCRR was 18.5 miles long; it started at Folsom, crossed the American River, and ended at the new town of Lincoln, twenty-four miles south of Marysville. The bridge over the American River was the first railroad bridge of any importance built in California, and the American the first river in California crossed by trains. In 1858, California Central was probably the first California railroad to employ Chinese laborers and first to demonstrate that "Chinese laborers can be profitably employed in grading railroads in California."
Maine Prairie is an unincorporated community located in Solano County, California east of Elmira, California on the Maine Prairie Slough at latitude 38.308 and longitude -121.759. The elevation is 7 feet (2.1 m). Maine Prairie appears on the Dozier U.S. Geological Survey Map.
The California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC) is a freely-available, archive of digitized California newspapers; it is accessible through the project's website. The collection contains over six million pages from over forty-two million articles. The project is part of the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) at the University of California Riverside.
