San Francisco and San Mateo Electric Railway
The company was only in business for ten years, starting from 1892 until it was merged into the United Railroads of San Francisco (URR) in 1902.
With an unpopular route that led to sparsely populated neighborhoods, the company could not generate much revenue despite having nearly 4,200,000 riders annually.
A September 18, 1893 newspaper article describing the first use of the car notes a charge of $10 to carry the casket, with the regular fare of 10 cents for each mourner.
[6] Unfortunately, this was not enough to cover the debt incurred from the line's initial construction as well as subsequent interest payments, forcing the company into receivership.
New cars, the first in the city to have front windows,[1] also arrived in summer of 1894, making it finally possible to go from the Ferry Building to Baden without a transfer.
Still, the receiver was unable to generate much of a profit and on April 11, 1896, the company was sold to a group of prominent San Franciscans, headed by brothers Adolph and John D. Spreckels.
In 1901, the company was sold once more to the "Baltimore Syndicate", a group of East Coast investors looking to purchase a number of Bay Area railways; their stated intent was to build the line as far south as San Jose, and they promised to build to the city of San Mateo within a year.
The URR then quickly built out the line 10.635 miles (17.115 km) to San Mateo which was operational on December 31, 1902.
The Big Subs were retired in 1923;[11] and the cars built in 1903 were modernized with electric heaters and deeply cushioned leather seats to continue service until this route was abandoned.
SP formed the Peninsular Railway Company in 1909, merging the former Santa Clara Interurban with the Peninsular Railroad and San Jose & Los Gatos Interurban Railway,[14] but the line was never extended north of Palo Alto into San Mateo County.
URR rebuilt from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake with more efficient routing along major streets replacing formerly parallel lines of the consolidated competing companies.
