As the
San Francisco and San Jose Railroad was being completed, the company extended the new main line beyond its Valencia and 25th Street station to a new terminal closer to the city's industrial center. Tracks were run down Harrison Street to new combination passenger and freight facilities in the Mission Bay at Brannan between Third and Fourth Streets. The Brannan depot opened on February 14, 1864. Most passenger services were rerouted to terminate down Valencia after a few years, though the Brannan depot continued to handle freight transferred from the waterfront. Southern Pacific moved the northern terminal of their Peninsula route to the
Mission Bay in response to the Tidelands Bill of 1868, which granted the
Central Pacific, Southern Pacific, and
Western Pacific railroads of land in the area on condition they provide a terminal station. The new terminal at the site was on Townsend between Third and Fourth, The depot also featured Southern Pacific's freight sheds. The company's corporate offices were additionally on site, and were destroyed in the
1906 San Francisco earthquake. A new passenger station opened at Third and Townsend on April 15, 1889. The 1889-built station, then becoming known as "The Old Depot", was moved to make way for the new building. Originally the 1914 station was supposed to be temporary, with a main station to be built further downtown; the Southern Pacific had assembled some of the land they would need to extend the line to a terminal at
Market Street and
Embarcadero, facing the
Ferry Building. However, this plan was never carried out, and Third and Townsend served as San Francisco's train station for 62 years. The depot was the terminus of Southern Pacific's
Sunset Limited, running to
New Orleans via Los Angeles. The service was cut back to Los Angeles in 1930, reinstated to San Francisco again in 1935, then cut back permanently in 1942. The station had its last long distance train on April30, 1971, when the Southern Pacific yielded operation of the
Coast Daylight to
Amtrak and the
Del Monte was discontinued. Amtrak opted to consolidate most of its Bay Area service in Oakland. However, the bus connections between San Francisco and Oakland (and later
Emeryville) continued, and are still operated as part of the
Amtrak Thruway banner. Peninsula Commute service also continued. With the rise of freeways and the loss of long-distance passenger rail service, Southern Pacific built the much smaller
Fourth and King Street Station to serve the Peninsula Commute in 1975. Third and Townsend was demolished in 1975–76. ==Description==