Alameda Terminal  Alameda Terminal (a.k.a. Alameda Wharf) was a railroad station and ferry wharf at the foot and west of present-day Pacific Avenue and Main Street in Alameda, California, on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay with ferry service to San Francisco. It was built in 1864 and operated by the San Francisco and Alameda Railroad. In 1869, it served as the original west coast terminus of the U.S. First Transcontinental Railroad,  until the opening of Oakland Pier two months later. The western terminus was inaugurated September 6, 1869, when the first Western Pacific through train from Sacramento reached the shores of San Francisco Bay at Alameda Terminal, thus completing the first transcontinental railroad to the Pacific coast. The Pacific Railroad Act passed by the United States Congress in 1862 authorized construction of the First transcontinental railroad and telegraph line, which included connecting the Central Pacific Railroad in the west with the Union Pacific Railroad in the east. In 1863, the first construction activity took the Central Pacific line eastward from Sacramento. In October 1864, the Central Pacific Railroad assigned all the rights of the Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864 to the Western Pacific Railroad for the route between Sacramento and San Jose, including land grants. The plan was that the transcontinental railroad would follow the Western Pacific to San Jose and then connect with the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad (SF&SJ), completed in 1864, to San Francisco. By 1866, Western Pacific had built of track north and east from San Jose, reaching halfway into Niles Canyon, to about Farwell near MilePost33. The Western Pacific used 500 Chinese laborers to grade and construct the rail line into the rugged canyon with its tight curves and narrow banks. Construction was then halted because of disagreements between the railroad’s contractors and its financiers. In 1868, Central Pacific Railroad, a subsidiary of which had acquired the Western Pacific and later Oakland Point, restarted work on the Western Pacific Railroad line starting at Sacramento working southward, as well as near Lathrop and Livermore, using upwards to 2,000 Chinese laborers. The new plan was to connect with Oakland and Oakland Point with its ferry service to San Francisco. In June 1869, work resume with track laying in Niles Canyon working towards Livermore. Also in June 1869, J. H. Strobridge came to Niles (then Vallejo Mills and now part of Fremont) to oversee the construction of the new line, with his crew of up to 600 Chinese laborers, heading towards Oakland.