Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/17

Rh The Ogden—Reno—Truckee—Sacramento route, and the route from Portland, Oregon, through the Sisldyou Mountains and the Sacramento Valley, both lead to Benicia. From this point on Carquinez Straits, the Southern Pacific conveys its trains by a monstrous ferry-boat which engulfs, if necessary, two whole trains at a time and swims with them to the opposite shore. There the cars take up the journey to the mile-long Oakland pier from whose extremity passengers are transferred by ferry to the phœnix-city which is poised on that outpost of land that guards the Golden Gate.

New York, Boston, Portland, Quebec, Montreal, Chicago, Omaha and St. Paul are the eastern terminals of railroads which have established connection with California over their own and other lines. Passengers are routed via the Northwest, via Colorado and Utah, or via the Southwest. The first two routes are best for scenery, the last-named for speed.

Service and equipment vary from the fast Limited with observation, library and club cars and barber-shop, valet, typewriter and graphophone extras to the every-day Pullman express; from the comfortable, rattan-upholstered Tourist cars to the leisurely train of the colonist who supplies his own bedding and reclines on wooden seats. The Tourist cars contain kitchenettes which are