In September, 1869, the transcontinental railroad from Omaha to San José was in working order. It would be an exaggeration to say that the line was in good shape. There was little or no ballast, and a good rain was said to make miles of the road-bed run like wet soap. Little had been done to eliminate grades and curves, sleeping-car accommodation at first was insufficient, the journey speed from Sacramento to Ogden was only 19 miles an hour, while schedules were not always adhered to. Cars were heated by stoves, and passengers disembarked for their meals. But in a measure these were conditions to be expected at the start, and interfered only in a minor degree with the interest and excitement of a transcontinental trip. The great fact was that a railroad existed which could be used, and over which relatively direct, rapid, and cheap communication with the East could be secured. The greatest weakness of the Central Pacific Railroad in 1869 lay in its lack of terminal facilities on San Francisco Bay. When the company decided to begin work at Sacramento, its reasonable expectation had been that a railroad under one management would be built from that city around the southern end of San Francisco Bay to the city of San Francisco. The Central Pacific was willing to forego the advantage of this construction itself in order to gain friends, and did it the more willingly because this stretch of line was likely to be unprofitable by reason of steamship competition on the bay and on the Sacramento River. These conditions changed, however, when the Contract and Finance Company took over the construction of the railroad from Sacramento to San José. The Central Pacific interest then obtained a connection of its own with Niles near Oakland, and it was thus led to consider the question of terminals on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay. The easiest part of San Francisco Bay for the Western Pacific Railroad to reach was undoubtedly the shore south of Oakland or Alameda. It would probably have been possible to build from Stockton to Richmond, as the Santa Fé did later, or to develop Benicia or Port Costa, or even to build a terminus on an island in the bay. Yet as compared with these alternatives, the Oakland terminus had many advantages. It was near to the Western Pacific main line; it was served by two railroads which possessed valuable franchises that could be bought at not too great expense; and, most important of all, the conditions under which the water-front at Oakland was held were favorable to the acquisition of the necessary terminal facilities. Oakland Water-Front