Super for Cruise Ships Sailing through the Golden Gate into the Sunset But Not Compatible for a Mix of High-Speed Rail and Containers
Today’s news is that the Port of San Francisco is concerned about California’s proposed high-speed railroad wanting to electrify and use the commuter line from San Jose up the long, mountainous Peninsula into San Francisco. That would be the very last straw for the Port of San Francisco’s long-held dream of having a container terminal or even of importing automobiles, both of which already require deepening those shallow railroad tunnels.
San Francisco is a beautiful city, at the end of a long, mountainous peninsula, almost completely surrounded by water. Its port can boast of the deepest water in the bay, but its rail and road connections may also be the worst.
In 1775, one year before the British colonies on the Atlantic Coast proclaimed their independence, the first Spanish ship sailed through “la Boca” on the West Coast to discover what has been called, “one of the largest and safest land-locked harbors in the world”. “La Boca” was, of course, the “Golden Gate,” and the Spaniards settled on the deep-water side of the Bay at a location that American 1849ers re-named “San Francisco.” For more than one hundred years, it was the major port on the Pacific Coast of North America. But, San Francisco had a major draw back, its location … at the end of a long, mountainous peninsula and almost completely surrounded by water, with no place to grow.
The Oakland Side of the Bay
The shallow water on the east side of the bay was not, and is not, conducive to port development, with every maritime expansion requiring a substantial dredging component. Nevertheless, the seeds of maritime development were firmly planted in Oakland with the arrival of the transcontinental railroads in the 1870s. The tracks stopped in Oakland, and docks and terminals were erected for ferrying passengers and freight across the Bay to the City.
Some years later a railroad line was actually built up the mountainous, long peninsula through a series of tunnels into San Francisco, but the western terminus for the transcontinental railroads remained firmly entrenched in Oakland. That was a key to the development of maritime terminals, and in 1927, to the establishment of the Port of Oakland, and the beginning of an intense rivalry with the then eminent Port of San Francisco.
The Container Age
Containers began to revolutionize the maritime industry in the 1960s, and the Port of Oakland plunged in with enthusiasm, constructing a nine-berth terminal out into the Bay with mud dredged from the construction of the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s tunnel under the bay. The terminal had on-dock rail connecting directly with the two transcontinental railroads. At the time, it was the largest container terminal on the Pacific Coast, handling 2.5 million tons of cargo in 1969
The Port of San Francisco tried to respond to the container revolution. It turned to its southern waterfront where land was available, and a container terminal was built with on-dock rail facilities. But that railroad line down the peninsula passed through a series of tunnels with clearances of only 17 ft, and double-stacked container railroad cars require a clearance of 22 ft.
A few shipping lines did sign up, and operations began, with containers largely moved by truck. Kaiser Engineers, a company I was associated with, even designed and built a system for loading containers onto barges for possible movement to other ports around the bay and even to nearby river ports. But, unfortunately, that effort never proved to be feasible.
The Port of San Francisco pleaded without avail for the railroad to deepen its tunnels on the Peninsula. Later, ownership of the railroad was transferred to a commuter line, which showed even less interest in the port’s problems. Then, it wanted to electrify the line, which would have further reduced the effective depth of the tunnels. The latest twist is that California’s proposed High Speed Railroad wants to take over the railroad right-of-way, and undoubtedly would have even less interest in coping with the container issue. So, eventually, the Port of San Francisco gave up on containers..
Today, the port’s container yard is a sad and rusty sight. The Port of San Francisco had tried to make it work, but the geography of being at the end of a long peninsula with shallow railroad tunnels proved to be insurmountable. Too bad for the port, but it is still a good place for cruise ships to sail into the sunset through the Golden Gate, and also for a major ship repair yard that now maintains many of those cruise ships.