Iron Horse Trail
The Iron Horse Regional Trail is a rail trail in the East Bay. Formerly a railroad for transporting fruit and grain, it's now a 32-mile (51-kilometer) paved biking and walking trail through Concord, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek, Danville, San Ramon, Dublin, and Pleasanton.
Like many bike trails in the United States, the Iron Horse Trail serves dual purposes of transportation and recreation. It's a useful route to bike between the towns it serves, with connections to BART, and it's a fun way to experience the marshy creeks and scenic hills of Contra Costa County.
Understand
[edit]In the late 1800s a Southern Pacific Railroad line was built connecting the towns of the outer East Bay to Avon, near Martinez. The railroad was a boon to farmers, who could ship their produce via Martinez to San Francisco and overseas, and towns like Danville grew up around train stations. But times changed, and with the invention of the Model T, the railroad's days were numbered. Passenger service stopped in 1934, and in 1978, even freight trains stopped running. Though train service was no longer viable, the flat route connecting the towns of the outer East Bay made the tracks a natural fit for a rail trail.
Nowadays the Iron Horse Trail is a comfortable and attractive path from Concord to Pleasanton, popular for biking and walking. For towns that grew up around the railroad (Danville, San Ramon, and Walnut Creek) the trail goes very close to downtown and is an excellent way to connect those towns to each other and to BART. The trail also goes through Concord, Pleasant Hill, and Dublin, but these are masterpieces of suburban sprawl without much in the way of downtowns. As for Pleasanton, the trail doesn't go through downtown but is connected to it by streets with bike lanes. There are plans to extend the trail in both directions, north to Suisun Bay and southeast to Livermore.
The entire route is paved (if you find yourself on a dirt path, you've taken a wrong turn), well maintained, wheelchair accessible, and mostly well signed, but it's still wise to have some kind of map, either a Central Contra Costa Regional Trails paper map (available for free at some spots on the route) or a mapping app on your smartphone. Google Maps is a good option if you turn on the biking layer. Parts of the trail are sometimes closed for construction, including short sections in San Ramon and Dublin in 2024, but designated detours should be provided.
Prepare
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Biking and walking are both popular, but since the whole trail is more than 30 miles (50 km), you'll probably want a bike if you're going any significant distance. Horses are also permitted but not as popular.
If you don't have a bike, you can rent one locally. Among other options, Sports Basement has branches in Walnut Creek and San Ramon, both well connected to the Iron Horse Trail by bike.
Get in
[edit]If you're starting from one of the towns mentioned above, there are pretty good networks of bike routes all over that connect to the Iron Horse Trail.
From other parts of the Bay Area (Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco) just take BART to Dublin/Pleasanton or Pleasant Hill station; 1 Dublin/Pleasanton BART is on the trail near its southern end, and 2 Pleasant Hill BART is about a block away from it near the northern end. It's easy to bring a bike on BART, and a fun way to experience the trail is to take the train to one of these stations and bike to the other one.
Bike
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- This guide is written mainly with cyclists in mind, and is described going from north to south, but the trail can equally be done in the opposite direction, and the entire route can be done on foot as well.
The Iron Horse Trail begins unceremoniously at the northern edge of 1 Concord beside the California Delta Highway (State Route 4). It goes south along a marshy creek at the western edge of Concord, and this northernmost part of the trail is more for recreation than transportation: it's not a particularly populated area, but in the marshland you can see birds, ground squirrels, and colorful flowers, and further in the distance are the hills of Contra Costa County. You might also see small planes landing at the tiny Buchanan Field Airport nearby. The marshy creek, by the way, is Walnut Creek, which gives its name to one of the main towns on the trail.
After about 6 miles (9 km) along the western edge of Concord and the eastern edge of 2 Pleasant Hill, the trail passes near Pleasant Hill/Contra Costa Centre BART station. If coming from further afield in the Bay Area, this is probably a good place to start the trail – you can head north from the station to see the marshland or south to the towns in the valley.
The trail passes near downtown 3 Walnut Creek, then down through suburbia (you can peer into people's backyards), past the tiny town of 4 Alamo, and into 5 Danville. The trail goes right through downtown Danville, where the former train station is now a local history museum and knowledgeable guides can tell you all about the rural railroad that preceded the bike path. After Danville, the Iron Horse Trail goes through 6 San Ramon and gets noticeably quieter for a while as you enter Dublin.
7 Dublin is a newer and decidedly less charming vision of suburbia than Walnut Creek or Danville: bright white concrete, rows of squat cookie-cutter apartments, and big fast boulevards. But you won't be here for long before the trail goes through Dublin/Pleasanton BART station. Signs will tell you to walk your bike through the station, and when you come out the other end, the Iron Horse Trail resumes (look for a big green street sign to point you which way to go).
As of 2024, the remaining southern portion of the trail is not as nice as the parts you've seen so far – if you're just riding the trail for fun, Dublin/Pleasanton BART may be a good stopping point. But if you're trying to get to 8 Pleasanton, it does continue. After some perfectly respectable parks, the scenery becomes dirt and gravel through a mix of industrial and residential suburbs, then a series of well-signed zigzags on mixed-use sidewalks. The trail peters out just as unceremoniously as it began, near 1 Shadow Cliffs, a nature reserve with a lakeside beach at the eastern edge of Pleasanton.
The hope is that the Iron Horse Trail will eventually connect to 9 Livermore; work on this has started, and it's already possible to continue on a mixed-use sidewalk along a noisy boulevard past Shadow Cliffs and into Livermore. This extension still feels halfhearted, but hopefully with time it will grow to feel like a real part of the trail.
Stay safe
[edit]This is a very safe part of the Bay Area. In Danville, crime is so low that you might notice people parking their bikes and leaving them unlocked.
Go next
[edit]For a more challenging bicycle adventure nearby, try biking up Mount Diablo. Hikers can consider other trails for hiking in the East Bay; in particular, Las Trampas Regional Wilderness near Danville is within walking distance of the Iron Horse Trail.
Further out, Marin County and the Peninsula have excellent hiking and biking trails, much more scenic than this one, and the San Francisco Crosstown Trail offers beautiful views of the city's natural and urban landscapes.