Guide to the Clement Family Documents Relating to San Francisco Cable Cars
Guide to the Clement Family Documents Relating to San Francisco Cable Cars
"Abstract: Contains original and blueprint engineering drawings of cable car lines, electric railways, railroads, and other related drawings. Cable car drawings include drawings of the complete workings for 7 cable car lines for Market Street Cable Railway Co. Railroad drawings include drawings of bridges and profiles of sections of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad. The collection also includes Lewis Metzler Clement's reference materials and some of R.M. Clement's personal papers."
posted from CPRR Discussion Group at 8:08 PM
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"Lewis Metzler Clement
Lewis Metzler Clement, known as L.M. Clement, was born in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, on August 12, 1837. Clement earned an engineering degree from Montréal's McGill University. Clement began his career with the railroads as a shipping clerk with the Central Ohio Railroad, eventually moving to St. Louis where he worked for E.R. Blanchard, General Freight Agenet of the Ohio and Mississippi Railway Company. In January 1863, Clement decided to leave St. Louis to seek his fortune in California. With a recommendation from Blanchard, he was able to secure a position from Theodore Dehone Judah, Chief Engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad, as Judah's assistant in the surveying and building of the first railroad eastward across the Sierra Nevada Mountains. With Judah's death, Clement was made Assistant Chief Engineer and eventually the Acting Chief Engineer.
The eastward route from California that Clement laid out for the Central Pacific Railroad is still in use today, while the original westward route from Omaha, Nebraska built by the Union Pacific Railroad was abandoned and rebuilt elsewhere because of its poor location and inefficient operation.
In 1881 Clement was named Chief Engineer of the Pacific Improvement Company, a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Railroad. As the Chief Engineer he was in charge of designing and building cable and electric railways, power plants and car houses. Among the cable lines he was responsible for helping to build were the Hayes Street, Castro Street and McAllister Street Cable lines of the Market Street Cable Railway Company.
L.M. Clement passed away at home in Hayward, California on October 29, 1914."
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