Trails To Rails

In the Beginning were two small Central Valley start-up transportation companies: the Tidewater & Southern Railroad Company and the Tidewater & Southern Transit Company. On March 11, 1912 these two Tidewater & Southerns decided they had more in common than not and merged to form a single new company: The Tidewater Southern.

The new company's investors (like so many budding "empire builders" of the time) were anxious to put the monolithic Southern Pacific in its place by offering local farmers, ranchers and merchants alternative transportation to ship goods out of the Central Valley. So hated, in fact, was the SP by some that over-zealous investors would preach how the new railroad would free farmers from the yoke of high tariffs and poor service; if just for a small investment!

Original company plans called for the construction of over 150 miles of electrified trackage to connect Stockton with the booming town of Fresno, in the southern San Joaquin Valley. And true visionaries talked of laying track beyond Fresno to Southern California to connect with the Ventura County Railroad at Oxnard.

Unfortunately, in spite of their lofty goals the Tidewater's construction crews never built beyond the tiny dairy town of Hillmar, just over the Merced County Line.

What's In A Name? The station of Turner is the first siding out of Stockton, at MP 6.2. Until its abandonment several years ago, Manteca Junction at MP 5.2 held that distinction. Original WP era station signs still graced many TS locations up through the early 1990s. As of 2001, however, the sign at Turner appears to be the sole survivor. The westbound side is still readable while the eastbound side is faded beyond recognition.  (Ken Rattenne Photo)

When the twin Tidewater companies merged to build a common railroad it seemed natural only natural to drop the ampersand (&) from their former shared names and christan the new pike the Tidewater Southern.  As with most shortlines, the Tidewater Southern took its name for the geography in ran through: Tidewater for the tidewaters of the San Joaquin River delta in thePortt of Stockton, and Southern for the geographical direction the line takes through the Valley (though no doubt the founding officers were thinking in bigger terms).  By October of 1912, the route was opened for the 30.1 miles between Stockton and North Junction in Modesto. That same year the railroad initiated Interurban service in Stockton, carrying passengers between the waterfront and Ortega at MP 1.7, just south of Western Pacific's Stockton yard. In those early days the Tidewater shared a terminal with the Central California Traction Company, which had a depot downtown at Taylor Street.  After leaving the waterfront Tidewater trains arrived at the downtown station on Taylor Street. To get to Ortega and gain access to its own line Tidewater trains had to use tracks belonging to the Stockton Electric then cross the SP and WP mainlines at grade using tracks originally constructed by WP predecessor Alameda & San Joaquin.

Line crews were kept busy between May and November of 1913 erecting trolley poles and stringing catenary wire between them electrifing the mainline by

It was a bright day for TS President Byron Bearce when the first train of Jewett cars rolled up to the Stockton depot to inaugurate Interurban service on November 15th, 1913. Painted in the standard Pullman Green typical of the era, the Jewetts were scheduled to operate three round trips a day, making the 33 mile run between Stockton and Modesto in an hour and twenty-five minutes This beat SP's running time, which operated trains every four hours, by 15 to 20 minutes. (By contrast, the same trip today takes only about 25 minutes on State Highway 99).

In those embryonic days, the Tidewater owned three Jewell combination cars and a solitary electric freight locomotive, numbered 100, and constructed from a flat car at the Central California Traction shop in Stockton.

The railroad opened the 16.3 miles of route between Modesto and Turlock in July of 1916, then eight miles between the station of Hatch (at milepost 41.6) and Hilmar (milepost 49.8) in 1917. This was as far as the railroad's southward expansion would reach, about 100 miles shy of its hoped-for destination of Fresno. While the railroad planned to electrify the Turlock line, it never occurred. In May of 1918, not long after inclusion into Western Pacific's family, the TS constructed a branch just 5.2 miles south of Stockton, at Manteca Junction. The Manteca Branch stretched its finger of track 6.6 miles into the town of Manteca to a location known simply as South Manteca.

Eventually, the main line was cut back from Hilmar to Chemurgic, at milepost 44.5, creating the 2.9 mile Chemurgic Branch. Because of hefty carloadings in Turlock (and the SP interchange located there) the "Turlock Branch" became the main line while the old mainline to Hilmar became a branch.