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Key System
The Key System (or Key Route) was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany, and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from 1903 until 1960, when it was sold to a newly formed public agency, AC Transit. The Key System consisted of local streetcar and bus lines in the East Bay, and commuter rail and bus lines connecting the East Bay to San Francisco by a ferry pier on San Francisco Bay, later via the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. At its height during the 1940s, the Key System had over 66 miles (106 km) of track. The local streetcars were discontinued in 1948 and the commuter trains to San Francisco were discontinued in 1958. The Key System's territory is today served by BART and AC Transit bus service.
The system began as a consolidation of several streetcar lines assembled in the late 1890s and early 1900s by Francis Marion "Borax" Smith and his business interests. After having made a fortune in Borax and gained his nickname, "Borax", the entrepreneur turned to real estate and electric traction for streetcars. The Key System was founded as the San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose Railway (SFOSJR), incorporated in 1902. After consolidating local lines under one company, Smith sought to compete with the Southern Pacific commuter ferry market as well as develop new streetcar suburbs in the East Bay. The troubled California & Nevada Railroad had begun construction of a ferry pier in Oakland, but its plans were never realized. Smith purchased the railroad in order to gain access to its right of way and waterfront operations, as well as use the abandoned pier as a starting point for his own passenger mole.
Transbay service began on October 26, 1903, with a four-car train carrying 250 passengers, departing downtown Berkeley for the ferry to San Francisco. Before the end of 1903, Frank C. Havens, the general manager of the SFOSJR, devised the idea of using a stylized map on which the system's routes resembled an old-fashioned key, with three "handle loops" that covered the cities of Berkeley, Piedmont (initially, "Claremont" shared the Piedmont loop) and Oakland, and a "shaft" in the form of the Key pier, the "teeth" representing the ferry berths at the end of the pier. The company touted its 'key route', which led to the adoption of the name "Key System".
In 1908, the SFOSJR changed its name to the San Francisco, Oakland & San Jose Consolidated Railway; it changed to the San Francisco-Oakland Terminal Railway in 1912. Smith was ousted from the company in 1913. After it went bankrupt in December 1923, it was re-organized as the Key System Transit Co., adopting a marketing concept as the name of the company.
Following the Great Crash of 1929, a holding company called the Railway Equipment & Realty Co. was created, with the subsidiary Key System Ltd running the commuter trains. In 1938, the name became the Key System.
During World War II, the Key System built and operated the Shipyard Railway between a transfer station in Emeryville and the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond.
National City Lines acquired 64% of the stock in the system in 1946.
The same year E. Jay Quinby hand published a document exposing the ownership of National City Lines (General Motors, Firestone Tire, and Phillips Petroleum). He addressed the publication to The Mayors; The City Manager; The City Transit Engineer; The members of The Committee on Mass-Transportation and The Tax-Payers and The Riding Citizens of Your Community. In it he wrote "This is an urgent warning to each and every one of you that there is a careful, deliberately planned campaign to swindle you out of your most important and valuable public utilities–your Electric Railway System".
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Key System
The Key System (or Key Route) was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany, and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from 1903 until 1960, when it was sold to a newly formed public agency, AC Transit. The Key System consisted of local streetcar and bus lines in the East Bay, and commuter rail and bus lines connecting the East Bay to San Francisco by a ferry pier on San Francisco Bay, later via the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. At its height during the 1940s, the Key System had over 66 miles (106 km) of track. The local streetcars were discontinued in 1948 and the commuter trains to San Francisco were discontinued in 1958. The Key System's territory is today served by BART and AC Transit bus service.
The system began as a consolidation of several streetcar lines assembled in the late 1890s and early 1900s by Francis Marion "Borax" Smith and his business interests. After having made a fortune in Borax and gained his nickname, "Borax", the entrepreneur turned to real estate and electric traction for streetcars. The Key System was founded as the San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose Railway (SFOSJR), incorporated in 1902. After consolidating local lines under one company, Smith sought to compete with the Southern Pacific commuter ferry market as well as develop new streetcar suburbs in the East Bay. The troubled California & Nevada Railroad had begun construction of a ferry pier in Oakland, but its plans were never realized. Smith purchased the railroad in order to gain access to its right of way and waterfront operations, as well as use the abandoned pier as a starting point for his own passenger mole.
Transbay service began on October 26, 1903, with a four-car train carrying 250 passengers, departing downtown Berkeley for the ferry to San Francisco. Before the end of 1903, Frank C. Havens, the general manager of the SFOSJR, devised the idea of using a stylized map on which the system's routes resembled an old-fashioned key, with three "handle loops" that covered the cities of Berkeley, Piedmont (initially, "Claremont" shared the Piedmont loop) and Oakland, and a "shaft" in the form of the Key pier, the "teeth" representing the ferry berths at the end of the pier. The company touted its 'key route', which led to the adoption of the name "Key System".
In 1908, the SFOSJR changed its name to the San Francisco, Oakland & San Jose Consolidated Railway; it changed to the San Francisco-Oakland Terminal Railway in 1912. Smith was ousted from the company in 1913. After it went bankrupt in December 1923, it was re-organized as the Key System Transit Co., adopting a marketing concept as the name of the company.
Following the Great Crash of 1929, a holding company called the Railway Equipment & Realty Co. was created, with the subsidiary Key System Ltd running the commuter trains. In 1938, the name became the Key System.
During World War II, the Key System built and operated the Shipyard Railway between a transfer station in Emeryville and the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond.
National City Lines acquired 64% of the stock in the system in 1946.
The same year E. Jay Quinby hand published a document exposing the ownership of National City Lines (General Motors, Firestone Tire, and Phillips Petroleum). He addressed the publication to The Mayors; The City Manager; The City Transit Engineer; The members of The Committee on Mass-Transportation and The Tax-Payers and The Riding Citizens of Your Community. In it he wrote "This is an urgent warning to each and every one of you that there is a careful, deliberately planned campaign to swindle you out of your most important and valuable public utilities–your Electric Railway System".
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