The C line ran right behind my house on Ricardo Avenue, about 1/3 mile north of here. When the train ran by the whole house would shake. We were used to it, but overnight visitors couldn't sleep until after midlnight when the train stopped running.E

I have two of the tokens, they're taped to one of the 2 vol set The Key Route. Fitting place for them.

I found a token the other day and was reminded that I rode this train with my granny back and forth across the bay bridge every weekend from 2 mos. old in 1953 until it stopped running.

yea I drove bus for ac transit 1970-1983 and the F line was one line I drove through this tunel many times to and from SF

Do you have any info. on the time the outbound F engineer had some sort of medical problem and ran the train off the end of track in Albany? The train ran down the street at a slight angle and stopped against a building about twohundred feet from end of track.

Shoot, I don't, but I [have to]believe someone 'out there' can answer your question. There has to be! The problem is that many who could answer it, much older Key System 'fan's are no longer with us, because of teh passage of time. The other option is newspapers of that Era, probably the Oakland Tribune, its' microfilmed copies - to go thru them. You'll need a year to make it easier. That is a suggestion. Aside from the 'tokens', I've a controller from one of the 'cars', used as a hat rack. It weighs a ton, and a destination curtain, stashed behind the controller. All Isinglass [spelling?] kind of fun.

I remember when the tunnel was boarded up, and Solano ave stopped at the Alameda. It was a gravel parking lot until the tunnel was reopened and paved for cars.

I went to Thousand Oaks Elementary, just a few blocks from "the tunnel", where in second grade a bunch of us embarked on a real adventure! Walking all the way up Solono avenue and into the dark and unlit tunnel, where everyone picked up old railroad spikes left behind after the tracks were torn up. For bunch of seven year old kids, walking into the tunnel was a little scary, because from one end you can't see any light coming from the other end, it was dark and scary with bats flying, full of oily gravel and smelly. We loved it! I'm sorry the kids of now-a-days don't have the opportunity for such in town adventure.

We would get up at first light and get out the mowers...go around and mow the neighbors lawns for .50 cents and at the noon hour, we had enough to either go to the movies at Solano Theater or play at Indian Rock or take the path and catch the F train at the Tunnel, for a ride to the Oakland Mole...the ferry was much more fun than riding over the bridge...and we would ride the ferry to the foot of Market. we would transfer to the N-Judah and ride that trolley all the way to Fleishacker Zoo or the Steinheart aquarium, and DeYoung Museum...cool Army section there with a TANK! pink popcorn and home...just so long as we got in before the street lights went on. Life then as a kid was magic.

We moved to a house on The Alameda at Solano in the mid-60s so the tunnel was already paved, but I remember being fascinated by the "ghosts" of the line visible in the pavement running down the middle of Solano and curving into the corner of the old Park and Shop (now Andronico's), which was originally a car barn.