The end of the 1910's and beginning of the 1920's would represent the Tidewater's first Golden Age.  While track expansion would end in 1918 with the branch to Manteca, plans to further extend the line south would continue to be explored until the 1930's.  At the beginning of the decade, passenger service was at its zenith with 12 daily roundtrips between Stockton and Modesto.  While this would diminish to 11 in 1922 and 9 in 1928, increasing freight traffic sometimes proved too much for just two electric locomotives and one steamer.  The Tidewater occaisionally borrowed electric power from the Sacramento Northern and Central California Traction and steam engines from parent Western Pacific.  By 1929, however, the interurban cars were losing customers badly and the Great Depression was on.

1921.  Denver, Colorado

Brand new TS 106 is on its way from builder General Electric's plant in Erie, Pennsylvania to its new home in California's Central Valley.

Otto Perry photo.  Denver Public Library collection.

date unknown (1920's).  Modesto, California.

Ready to roll, 2 of the Tidewater's 3 Jewett combination interurban cars are preparing to depart for Stockton.

E. R. Mohr photo, Dave Stanley collection.

Gallery.. 1920-1929

Tidewater Southern Railway

date unknown (1920's).  location unknown, Stockton?

Rebuilt from an older car, TS caboose 302 rests with some Western Pacific relatives.  This truss rod underframe car would be replaced before World War II by steel underframe cabooses, also from the WP.

Kenneth Clyde Jenkins photo.  California State Railroad Museum collection.