The Ledge Revisited

It appears that going back on Google Maps to look at the Ocean Shore Railway's ledge in San Francisco, shows a much different outcome out of the suspicion that I had thought of. I was, in fact, mistaken, in my suspicion that the Ocean Shore Railway used a man-made causeway to reach Daily City & San Francisco up above, using a steep grade to get up the cliffs. In reality, when zoomed in the railway actually curves along with the ridge, leading to a now collapsed secondary ledge where it would slowly reach up to San Francisco above.

The blue arrows show what I originally thought, whilst the red arrows show my new revelation.

In the Chevalier Map, it shows that the railway had curved from the ledge into the city of San Francisco, which I thought matched up with my suspicion. I am unaware of any photographs that were taken on the ledge in San Francisco as stated in the past post. In the Chevalier Map below, we can see that the ridge shown in the red arrow in the center of the photo, was not in fact there when the Ocean Shore Railroad came though, possibly an effect of at least 90 years of neglect after abandonment. 

The geographical lines prove that there was no ridge and that the railroad did curve.

As shown, the ledge curves and meets the collapsed section of the ledge.

In the picture above, we see the line actually curve, meeting what seems to be rubble and debris from a collapsed section of the cliff that it tried so hard to carve into. Near to the center top of the picture, you can see more remains of the ledge curving once again, this time almost near the city of Daly City & San Francisco. 

In the picture above, we can observe that the ground is relatively in the same grade when the ledge approaches. We, of course, can only assume this is correct as a massive landslide blocks the way of the original track. At the chevalier map, we can see the line curves to the right. After ninety years, the line is pretty much un-traceable into the city from recent development. One thing we do know, however, is that Ocean Shore Trains entered San Francisco via Alemany Blvd. Thus, this ends the revisitation of the ledge in San Francisco. I hope to visit this spot soon, and take photos for you all! 

SOURCES:

Hunter, Chris. Ocean Shore Railroad. Arcadia, 2004.

Chevalier Map of San Francisco - 1912