SS Asbury Park - California Service

California Service

War conditions and other economic problems had caused Asbury Park to be taken out of service in 1916. In 1918, Asbury Park was sold to the Monticello Steamship Company, a San Francisco firm.It was announced that prior to the transfer, extensive mechanical work would be done to the vessel, including removal of a number of the vessel's boilers (with a consequent decrease in engine power) and conversion to an oil-burner. In addition the saloons and staterooms of the vessel would be dismantled in preparation for conversion to a passenger ferry. However it appears that this work was not done on the East Coast, but later, after the vessel had reached California.

Asbury Park was taken to the west coast under Capt. Fred Warner and Capt. Fred Warner and Chief Engineer Samuel Sutton. Once the vessel arrived in San Francisco it was placed on the Vallejo – Mare Island, transporting workers to Mare Island Naval Shipyard . In 1925 the vessel was and extensively modified and renamed to become the commuter ferry SS City of Sacramento crossing San Francisco Bay between San Francisco and Vallejo. In 1925, she was refitted and more passenger deck space was added, and in 1927 she came under the ownership of Southern Pacific-Golden Gate Ferries following a series of mergers of the ferry companies operating on the Bay.

In 1927 Southern Pacific acquired Monticello Steamship Company, and its three ships, including City of Sacramento.

The opening of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 put most of the ferry services on San Francisco Bay out of business, and in 1941 the City of Sacramento was sold to the Puget Sound Navigation Company (PSNC) and moved to Puget Sound. There she operated between downtown Seattle and Bremerton, site of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, one of the United States Navy's main centres for building, maintaining, and repairing warships during the Second World War.