This article lists the railroads and a timeline of railroad history in Solano County, California.
19 Sep 1907 Northern Electric Railway incorporated at Chico from purchase of several railroads. No railroad in Solano County at time of incorporation.
| City | 1860 | 1870 | 1880 | 1890 | 1900 | 1910 | 1920 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Benicia | 1,470 | 1,656 | 2,067 | 2,951 | 2,751 | 2,360 | 2,693 |
| Dixon | N/A | N/A | N/A | 1,082 | 783 | 827 | 926 |
| Elmira | N/A | N/A | 816 | 869 | 717 | 494 | 452 |
| Rio Vista | N/A | 888 | 1,232 | 1,236 | 682 | 884 | 1,104 |
| Vacaville | 1,831 | 1,701 | 1,299 | 2,712 | 1,220 | 1,177 | 1,254 |
| Vallejo | 1,431 | 6,391 | 6,587 | 6,866 | 7,965 | 11,340 | 21,107 |
Vacaville is a city located in Solano County, California. Sitting about 35 miles (56 km) from Sacramento and 55 miles (89 km) from San Francisco, it is on the edge of the Sacramento Valley in Northern California. The city was founded in 1851 and is named after Juan Manuel Vaca.
Solano County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, its population was 453,491. The county seat is Fairfield.
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.
The North Bay is a subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area, in California, United States. The largest city is Santa Rosa, which is the fifth-largest city in the Bay Area. It is the location of the Napa and Sonoma wine regions, and is the least populous and least urbanized part of the Bay Area. It consists of Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties.
The California Pacific Railroad Company was incorporated in 1865 at San Francisco, California as the California Pacific Rail Road Company. It was renamed the California Pacific Railroad Extension Company in the spring of 1869, then renamed the California Pacific Railroad later that same year. Its main line from Vallejo to Sacramento was completed six months prior to the May 1869 golden spike ceremony of the Central Pacific/Union Pacific Transcontinental Railway.
The California Northern Railroad is one of several Class III short-line railroad companies owned by Genesee & Wyoming, Inc. It operates over Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) tracks under a long-term lease.
The Western Railway Museum, in Solano County, California is located on Highway 12 between Rio Vista and Suisun. The museum is built along the former mainline of the Sacramento Northern Railway. Their collection focuses on trolleys, as it is primarily a museum of interurban transit equipment.
Area codes 707 and 369 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the northwestern part of the U.S. state of California. The area codes serve part of the northern San Francisco Bay Area, as well as the North Coast. Major cities in the area codes include Napa, Sebastopol, Vallejo, Benicia, Fairfield, Santa Rosa, Windsor, Healdsburg, Rohnert Park, Petaluma, Fort Bragg, Rio Vista, Crescent City, Eureka, Clearlake, Vacaville, Dixon, and Ukiah. 707 was created by a split of area code 415 on March 1, 1959. Area code 369 was added to the numbering plan area (NPA) on February 1, 2023, to form an overlay numbering plan in the service area.
The Sacramento Northern Railway 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. 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 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.
Rancho Suscol was an 84,000-acre (340 km2) Mexican land grant in present day Sonoma County, California, Napa County, California, and Solano County, California, given in 1843 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. In a significant land law decision, the land claim was rejected by the US Supreme Court in 1862. Rancho Suscol extended from Rancho Petaluma on the west, south down to the San Francisco Bay and Mare Island and Carquinez Strait, and then to Rancho Suisun on the east. It included present day cities of Vallejo and Benicia.
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.
The Vaca Mountains are a mountain range in Napa and Solano Counties, California that is one of the California Coast Ranges. They represent the easternmost of the Inner Coast Ranges in north−central California, and divide the Suisun Valley on their west, from the Sacramento Valley on their east.
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.
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 Howell Mountains, which are also known as the Mt. George Range, are one of the California Coast Ranges. They divide the Suisun Valley on the east side, from Napa Valley on the west. Historically the southern part of the range has been referred to as both the Sierra de Suscol and as the Sierra de Napa.
The Vallejo and Northern Railroad was a proposed 58.15-mile (93.58 km) interurban railway line between Vallejo and Woodland, California. The company was incorporated on November 9, 1906, promoted by the same person who put forward the Dixon Branch. Terminal sites were purchased in Fairfield, Suisun, Vacaville, and Vallejo, California. Additionally, the railroad also began planning an extension from Woodland to Sacramento, going on to acquire franchise rights for running on Sacramento streets and purchasing property in Woodland. Despite the swift property acquisition, construction had not commenced, reportedly a result of the Panic of 1907. The company was merged into the Sacramento Northern Railway predecessor Northern Electric Railway in 1909 after Northern Electric floated $10 million worth of bonds in Amsterdam. A single tram lettered Vallejo & Northern # 1 operated in downtown Sacramento from November 15, 1911 until 1914. Construction of what would become the Sacramento Northern Vaca Valley Line began in 1913; and line opened for service on May 16, 1914. Northern Electric combination cars numbered 103, 104, and 22 offered passenger service over this isolated branch until passenger service was abandoned in 1926. Motor #701 pulled carloads of freight transferred from barges and shallow-draft steamboats at Suisun. The line was connected to Sacramento Northern's main line via a new branch between Vacaville and Creed in 1930. Western Pacific Railroad proposed extending the Willotta branch of their Sacramento Northern subsidiary through Jamison Canyon to connect with the Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad (P&SR) as late as 1932, but the Great Depression and Northwestern Pacific Railroad purchase of the P&SR prevented such expansion. The connecting line through Cordero was relocated during construction of Travis Air Force Base in 1942, and diesel locomotives replaced electric operation in 1947.
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