The Iron Horse Trail

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2023

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Iron Horse Regional Trail runs more than 30 miles through the San Ramon Valley. But many folks who walk or ride their bikes along this paved path may not know it used to be a railroad line. This week, reporter Amy Mayer rides the rails through locomotive history in the San Ramon Valley to learn how the trains may have shaped the surrounding cities. Additional Reading: This 30-Mile East Bay Trail has Roots on the Railroad Read a transcript of this episode Take our audience survey Enter our Sierra Nevada Brewing Company monthly trivia contest Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was reported by Amy Mayer. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From K-QED.
0:02.0	Bekurious listener Linda Ow regularly walks a two-mile section of trail near her home in
0:10.4	Concord called Iron Horse. Then one day for work, she took a bus to Pleasanton.
0:16.0	I looked around and I saw the sign for Iron Horse Trail in Pleasanton. I was shocked. I didn't know that it went all the way down there and that was
0:26.5	when my interest was piqued. Linda was surprised to discover that the trail she thought was just a few miles long
0:35.0	actually runs more than 30 miles through the San Ramon Valley.
0:39.0	The discovery also reminded her of something she'd seen as a kid.
0:43.0	She grew up in Walnut Creek, and there was this building that looked like an old train station.
0:48.0	And it was a steak restaurant for a while, and now it's vacant.
0:52.0	And I grew up you know passing by looking at it thinking oh what a cool
0:57.1	building and then kind of sad that it wasn't used as a train station anymore
1:02.2	and curious about that.
1:04.0	Linda is a bit of a train aficionado and once she realized there was a connection between
1:08.8	the Iron Horse Trail she likes to walk and that old train depot she grew up near she started
1:14.3	wondering. When did actual trains run? Did they carry passengers? Where were the
1:20.0	train stations located? Was the historic Walnut Creek Station one of them?
1:25.0	Linda's question one are January voting round at bay curious.org.
1:29.2	So this week we'll take a look back at locomotive history in the San Ramon Valley,
1:33.7	and how this once bustling train corridor
1:36.2	became a lovely trail.
1:38.3	I'm Olivia Helen Price, and this is Bay Curious,
1:41.3	the show that explores the Bay Area one question at a time.
	...

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