The old Transbay Terminal: When trains came first

Pflueger clearly had a railroad depot in mind when he envisioned the terminal, not the buses-only structure it would become before its demise. The new Transit Center is limited to bus traffic, although SamTrans buses are not currently using the terminal, instead opting for a site a block or so away. The ultimate goal for the center is to become home to Caltrain passenger service as well as high-speed rail now under construction in the Central Valley. The new terminal that opened Aug. 12 covers three blocks, including the area of the old terminal. The new Transit Center, officials say, will someday connect eight Bay Area counties through 11 transit systems.

The Transbay Terminal off Mission Street topped levels that catered to arriving or departing passengers. Streetcars pulled up on tracks that formed a horseshoe in the front of the building while cars and buses stopped on Mission Street, letting off people who walked through a tunnel to the terminal that was designed to handle as many as 35 million passengers a year. The system’s heyday was during World War II when the Key System transported 26 million people annually. The new terminal’s future is forecast to accommodate up to 45 million.

The Key System wasn’t the only line to use the terminal, although it was the main one. In 1939, Sacramento Northern had three weekday trains from Chico to San Francisco. Sacramento Northern also had runs from Pittsburg to San Francisco and Concord to San Francisco. The Sacramento line stopped passenger service to San Francisco in 1941.

The end of World War II was also the end of gas rationing, enabling more people to drive across the bridge. By 1958, the Key System trains on the bridge were a thing of the past and a year later the terminal was converted to buses only.

In 1960, the California Department of Public Works repaved the old track loop to accommodate 14 bus routes and installed a new stairway flanked on both sides by escalators leading from the lobby to the mezzanine level, but such improvements couldn’t stave off the inevitable. The old movie line about “the train doesn’t stop here anymore,” which summed up the reason for a whistlestop town’s decline, could apply to the terminal. The building deteriorated, turning into a dusty, dark place for bus passengers to hurry through and get out of as soon as possible. The terminal became an unofficial home for the homeless, with the resulting smell of urine that permeated much of the building. It was demolished in 2010 to make way for the new transit center that supporters say will someday rival New York’s “Grand Central Station,” or, as New Yorkers insist on calling it, “Grand Central Terminal,” a distinction needed to avoid confusion with the post office located inside the terminal.

It is easy to understand why people in the rest of the nation say “Grand Central Station.” From 1937 to 1954, one of the most popular shows on radio was “Grand Central Station” with a signature line that described the railroad mecca as “the crossroads of a million private lives, a gigantic stage on which are played a thousand dramas daily.”

The Rear View Mirror by history columnist Jim Clifford appears in the Daily Journal every other Monday. Objects in The Mirror are closer than they appear.