Dating to 1945, this short film “March of Progress” gives a short overview of the Great East Bay Area public transport system in San Francisco, aka the Key System. The Key System (or Key Route) was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany, and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from 1903 until 1960, when it was sold to a newly formed public agency, AC Transit. The Key System consisted of local streetcar and bus lines in the East Bay, and commuter rail and bus lines connecting the East Bay to San Francisco by a ferry pier on San Francisco Bay, later via the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. At its height during the 1940s, the Key System had over 66 miles (106 km) of track. The local streetcars were discontinued in 1948 and the commuter trains to San Francisco were discontinued in 1958. The Key System’s territory is today served by BART and AC Transit bus service.
The film begins with a short history and some images of how things used to look a the turn of the century. This is followed by the innovations in transport brought through the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, which was the highest technological standard for rail control at the time. This is followed by the onset of the war and a quick overview of how the transit company contributed to the war effort. It ends with some renditions of possible future trolley and interurban cars.
0:29 Title “March of Progress”, 1:03 picture of “Borax Smith”, 1:14 overview of a square in Oakland, 1:45 image of Berkeley campus, 1:55 aerial overview of downtown San Francisco and city scenes, 2:20 ferries pulling into San Francisco harbor, 2:45 Golden Gate Bridge and the opening ceremony, 3:11 trains operating on the Oakland Bay Bridge and an overview of the train control system in the control tower next to the bridge, 4:14 demonstration of the “shoe” being activated to draw power from a third rail rather than the overhead lines, 4:43 view from the motorman or operator cabin as a train drives across the bridge with a demonstration of how the speed indicator works, 5:51 workers building new tracks, 6:08 workers in the machine shop, 6:25 a trolley car undergoing maintenance, 6:47 overview of the bus garage, 7:33 footage from the attack on Pearl Harbor, 7:57 FDR giving a speech in front of Congress, 8:52 Women being employed to drive buses and trolley cars, 9:24 Richmond Shipyard railways pulling into the station, 10:11 a woman with her child opening a garage door and then deciding to take the bus instead, 10:55 buses driving U.S. Navy personnel to the Alameda Navy base, 11:30 map of Oakland with the transit lines overlaid, 11:40 a trolley car driving down the road, 12:06 a huge crowd of people getting on a tram with every day scenes from inside the trolley car, 13:06 trolley car riding over the Golden Gate Bridge and then pulling into a station, 14:25 sketch of future renditions of interurban cars with a little animated man running across the drawing board, 15:27 the little animated man sits inside one of the futuristic cars and upgrades it, 15:58 “The End”
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
