page_title: Balboa Park station
section_title: Southern Pacific Railroad
hierarchical_section_title: Balboa Park station / History / Southern Pacific Railroad
caption_attribution_description: English: Construction of the Southern Freeway through the Balboa Park area in 1964. Ocean Avenue (with a temporary bypass for vehicles and streetcars) is in the foreground, with Geneva Avenue behind. Muni's Elkton Shops, Ocean Bus Yard, and Geneva Yard are at left.
context_page_description: Balboa Park is a Bay Area Rapid Transit and Muni Metro station complex located south of Balboa Park in southern San Francisco, California. It is an intermodal hub served by four BART routes, three Muni Metro lines, and a number of Muni bus routes. The station complex also includes two rail yards, Cameron Beach Yard and Green Light Rail Center, where Muni maintains Muni Metro trains and heritage streetcars. BART uses a below-grade island platform on the west side of the complex; Muni Metro routes use several smaller side platforms located on surface-level rail loops around the yards.
  The San Francisco and San Jose Railroad opened in 1863, with Elkton station located near the modern site. Passenger service on the line ran until about 1922. Electric streetcar service at Balboa Park began in 1892 with the San Francisco and San Mateo Electric Railway, which built a still-standing office building designed by Reid & Reid there in 1901. The United Railroads conglomerate built its Elkton shops on an adjacent parcel in 1907. In the 1960s, BART decided to use the Ocean View Branch right-of-way for part of a rapid transit system.
context_section_description: The San Francisco and San Jose Railroad (SF&SJ) opened through San Francisco on October 16, 1863, and was merged into the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) in 1868. The line had several stops within San Francisco, including Elkton, located on the east side of the tracks 300 feet (90 m) south of Ocean Avenue. It was primarily a freight station for nearby farms, though it also served the nearby Industrial School as well as residential neighborhoods that were laid out in the 1860s. However, the railroad was not very useful to local residents: high fares discouraged both passengers and freight, and on-street running in the Mission District made the ride slow. After the SP opened the faster Bayshore Cutoff in 1907, the original mainline through San Francisco was reduced to a minor freight branch (the Ocean View Branch) with minimal passenger service.
  SP passenger service on the Ocean View Branch was limited to a few daily locals after 1907, and just one daily round trip after June 1919. Regular passenger service on the branch ended around 1922, though freight service continued. The tracks were abandoned north of Ocean Avenue (up to 23rd Street) on August 10, 1942, and south of Ocean Avenue (to at least Daly City) after a 1956 excursion train. The Southern Freeway was constructed partially on the abandoned right-of-way in the 1960s; the section through Balboa Park was completed in 1964. As part of the highway, pedestrian ramps were built at Ocean Avenue to allow passengers on highway express buses to transfer to local transit.
caption: Freeway construction on the former SP right-of-way in 1964. Elkton Shops is at left.
exif: {}