Just before the turn of the century, a railroad
was constructed from downtown San Jose into Alum Rock Park. This
early little train usually consisted of just three components: a
small locomotive, one passenger car and a flat car. The train was
so lightweight that on its arrival at the entrance of the park, men
would load rocks on the flat car to help hold the passenger car on
the tracks when it crossed the bridge over Penitencia Creek. Even
with this ballast, sometimes a car would slip off the tracks and
dangle over the chasm. Fortunately, none ever dropped all the way
to the creek bed and there were no serious injuries –
yet.
The Alum Rock Railway line into the park
switched from steam engines to electric during the great push for
electrification and expansion of the Bay Area railroad system in
1901. The largest gasoline-fueled electric powerhouse on the entire
West Coast was constructed at the mouth of Alum Rock Canyon close
to the park’s lower entrance. At about the same time, tracks
were extended further into the park. The new terminus and depot
were deep in the canyon near the gazebo. Now folks could ride the
“narrow-gauge electric” all the way to the bathing area
and not arrive peppered with soot from the steam engines’
fireboxes.
Flooding, bridge washouts, tunnel cave-ins
and a serious accident with fatalities were a few of the challenges
the railroad suffered, but it was the proliferation of the
automobile which caused its ultimate demise in 1932.
