The modern purveyor of little picture books relating to local history of many areas is Arcadia Publishing. You can (easily and with justification) take exception to their editing, layout, and fact-checking, and the printing is of highly variable quality, but they do make the material available. [www.arcadiapublishing.com]

Yes, I know, many if not all of these SF rail-related subjects have been covered in much greater detail in better-researched and -produced books over the years. I have a few of them, and greatly respect and admire the effort the authors have put into developing them. But those are almost all out of print for a long time and not coming back, or are coffee-table or reference books of impressive qualiity AND price. Arcadia's are relatively inexpensive in most cases, and are generally available from standard booksellers. As an alternative, many of the older Really Good books can be found at major public libraries, and if you're too far away from, say, SFPL to check something out there you can often arrange interlibrary loan through your local library at a nominal fee.

I do not work for Arcadia, do not own stock, and in general have no connection with the company other than knowing they're around because I have some of their books, and knowing how to use Google.

In a quick wander of their search engine (it ain't Google...but 'San Francisco' works), I came up with several items that might be of interest regarding San Francsico rail and transit history:

- Caltrain and the Peninsula Commute Service [www.arcadiapublishing.com]
- Ferries of San Francisco Bay [www.arcadiapublishing.com]
- Ocean Shore Railroad [www.arcadiapublishing.com]
- Railways of San Francisco [www.arcadiapublishing.com]
- San Francisco's California Street Cable Cars [www.arcadiapublishing.com]
- San Francisco's Interurban to San Mateo [www.arcadiapublishing.com]
- San Francisco's Market Street Railway [www.arcadiapublishing.com]
- San Francisco's Municipal Railway: Muni [www.arcadiapublishing.com]
- San Francisco's Powell Street Cable Cars [www.arcadiapublishing.com]
- The Key System: San Francisco and the Eastshore Empire [www.arcadiapublishing.com]
- Trolleys & Streetcars Bargain Bundle [www.arcadiapublishing.com]

The same search turned up quite a few other items of nearby (to SF) rail interest, too.

Cheers