Trains, trains, trains

It is said that as a baby, one of the only ways to calm me down was to drive over to the Santa Fe switching yards in Richmond, Calif., and let me hear the trains.

I’ve had something of a love affair with trains since then, though I prefer working steam trains to diesel-electrics. Since the late 1990s, I’ve been involved with small-scale live steamming, where we run real steam locomotives on track that is about 1¾-inch wide; they scale down to about 1 inch equalling 20 inches.

Below are some links that I’ve encountered in my quest for more train information. Emphasis is on steam or Northern California. Don’t forget to visit our specials page.

General Manager

Amtrak

The National Railroad Passenger Corp. (the name Amtrak is drawn from the words American travel by track) has a Web site that lists the railroad’s routes and provides maps, timetables and things (reservations are now available on-line too).

RailPage Australia

Nice listings of not only Australian rail info, but also stuff world-wide.

Wes Barris’ steam page

Computer programmer by day; train buff by night. A wonderful compendium of steam train info; Barris’ table of existing steam trains seems to be thorough, though it’s a good thing all we were looking for was California listings, as the table was too large to completely download.

Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad
A very nice park train in the Los Gatos (San Jose) area.

California Trolley and Railroad Corp.

The merger of the San Jose Trolley Corp. and the Santa Clara Valley Railroad Association has produced a group that plans to build a museum and excursion railroad in the South Bay. The core of the museum will be a roundhouse built on the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. Steam will be provided by Southern Pacific 2479 Baldwin P-10 heavy Pacific (4-6-2), which is currently under reconstruction (progressing apace, one might add).

California State Railroad Museum

Certainly one of the best railroad museums in the United States, the CSRM also runs two railways -- the Sacramento Southern and the Sierra Railroad. The former is based right there in Old Sacramento alongside the museum; the latter is in the Sierra foothills in Jamestown. At the museum, the dioramas of California-oriented steam engines are powerful; at the railroads, real steam powers both lines. The Railtown 1897 shops are something to behold and the equipment has been in many movies and TV shows ("Petticoat Junction"). A 1996 visit to the Railtown produced some poor-quality photos.

Carolwood Historical Society
Dedicated to those who Believe in Magic (well, Magic Kingdom, anyway), the Carolwood keeps the memory of Walt Disney, backyard railroader, alive. It also focuses on the existing steam engines at the various Disney parks.

Golden Gate Live Steamers
One-and-a-half-inch scale railroad group in the Berkeley hills, the group has a small 45mm ground-level track.

Golden Gate Railway Museum

As with many restoration projects, GGRM started with a retired steam loco in a park (or in the case of SP 2472, at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds). Following almost a decade of work, in the mid-1990s the group was evicted from the fairgrounds and relocatd to San Francisco’s Hunters Point (formerly the Naval Shipyard). When the DOD turned the area over to the City of San Francisco for redevelopment, the area needed to be cleaned and the group was evicted again. The collection &ndash which included four diesels, 11 passenger cars and a flatcar and caboose – were scattered to the four winds. SP 2472, which is fully restored and runable, is being stored at Niles Canyon (see Pacific Locomotive Assn. below) and is brought out every now and then for a fund-raising run.

Motive Power Review
Really good lists (surviving E and F units, rotary snowplows) as well as some articles from newsgroups that might be interesting. Also, the main page offers naval and aviation documents.

Napa Valley Wine Train

One of our problems with doing the wine tasting thing in the Napa Valley is that of inebriation and transportation – it’s easy to get drunk if you hit enough wineries. The Wine Train solves this (though you don’t get to stop at the wineries) providing a nice meal as well. Also, it’s E-7 motive power and 1915 Pullman carriages.

National Summer Steamup

Put 100 guys and gals into a 50,000-square-foot hotel ballroom in Sacramento, give them two huge layouts and three or four smaller ones, add some butane, meths, coal and distilled water and you have the National Summer Steamup for small scale (1:13.7-1:32) live steamers. I help organize this event, so I’m undoubtedly prejudiced, but everybody sure has a lot of fun, not only running trains, but at the social events (Saturday night BBQ, door prize drawing), clinics and the dealer room. (And don’t miss the Interesting Links web page).

Nevada Northern

Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.

Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: The National Railroad Passenger Corp. (the name Amtrak is drawn from the words American travel by track) has a Web site that lists the railroad’s routes and provides maps, timetables and things (reservations are now available on-line too).
RailPage Australia

Nice listings of not only Australian rail info, but also stuff world-wide.

Wes Barris’ steam page

Computer programmer by day; train buff by night. A wonderful compendium of steam train info; Barris’ table of existing steam trains seems to be thorough, though it’s a good thing all we were looking for was California listings, as the table was too large to completely download.

Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad
A very nice park train in the Los Gatos (San Jose) area.

California Trolley and Railroad Corp.

The merger of the San Jose Trolley Corp. and the Santa Clara Valley Railroad Association has produced a group that plans to build a museum and excursion railroad in the South Bay. The core of the museum will be a roundhouse built on the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. Steam will be provided by Southern Pacific 2479 Baldwin P-10 heavy Pacific (4-6-2), which is currently under reconstruction (progressing apace, one might add).

California State Railroad Museum

Certainly one of the best railroad museums in the United States, the CSRM also runs two railways -- the Sacramento Southern and the Sierra Railroad. The former is based right there in Old Sacramento alongside the museum; the latter is in the Sierra foothills in Jamestown. At the museum, the dioramas of California-oriented steam engines are powerful; at the railroads, real steam powers both lines. The Railtown 1897 shops are something to behold and the equipment has been in many movies and TV shows ("Petticoat Junction"). A 1996 visit to the Railtown produced some poor-quality photos.

Carolwood Historical Society
Dedicated to those who Believe in Magic (well, Magic Kingdom, anyway), the Carolwood keeps the memory of Walt Disney, backyard railroader, alive. It also focuses on the existing steam engines at the various Disney parks.

Golden Gate Live Steamers
One-and-a-half-inch scale railroad group in the Berkeley hills, the group has a small 45mm ground-level track.

Golden Gate Railway Museum

As with many restoration projects, GGRM started with a retired steam loco in a park (or in the case of SP 2472, at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds). Following almost a decade of work, in the mid-1990s the group was evicted from the fairgrounds and relocatd to San Francisco’s Hunters Point (formerly the Naval Shipyard). When the DOD turned the area over to the City of San Francisco for redevelopment, the area needed to be cleaned and the group was evicted again. The collection &ndash which included four diesels, 11 passenger cars and a flatcar and caboose – were scattered to the four winds. SP 2472, which is fully restored and runable, is being stored at Niles Canyon (see Pacific Locomotive Assn. below) and is brought out every now and then for a fund-raising run.

Motive Power Review
Really good lists (surviving E and F units, rotary snowplows) as well as some articles from newsgroups that might be interesting. Also, the main page offers naval and aviation documents.

Napa Valley Wine Train

One of our problems with doing the wine tasting thing in the Napa Valley is that of inebriation and transportation – it’s easy to get drunk if you hit enough wineries. The Wine Train solves this (though you don’t get to stop at the wineries) providing a nice meal as well. Also, it’s E-7 motive power and 1915 Pullman carriages.

National Summer Steamup

Put 100 guys and gals into a 50,000-square-foot hotel ballroom in Sacramento, give them two huge layouts and three or four smaller ones, add some butane, meths, coal and distilled water and you have the National Summer Steamup for small scale (1:13.7-1:32) live steamers. I help organize this event, so I’m undoubtedly prejudiced, but everybody sure has a lot of fun, not only running trains, but at the social events (Saturday night BBQ, door prize drawing), clinics and the dealer room. (And don’t miss the Interesting Links web page).

Nevada Northern

Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.

Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: Nice listings of not only Australian rail info, but also stuff world-wide.
Wes Barris’ steam page

Computer programmer by day; train buff by night. A wonderful compendium of steam train info; Barris’ table of existing steam trains seems to be thorough, though it’s a good thing all we were looking for was California listings, as the table was too large to completely download.

Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad
A very nice park train in the Los Gatos (San Jose) area.

California Trolley and Railroad Corp.

The merger of the San Jose Trolley Corp. and the Santa Clara Valley Railroad Association has produced a group that plans to build a museum and excursion railroad in the South Bay. The core of the museum will be a roundhouse built on the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. Steam will be provided by Southern Pacific 2479 Baldwin P-10 heavy Pacific (4-6-2), which is currently under reconstruction (progressing apace, one might add).

California State Railroad Museum

Certainly one of the best railroad museums in the United States, the CSRM also runs two railways -- the Sacramento Southern and the Sierra Railroad. The former is based right there in Old Sacramento alongside the museum; the latter is in the Sierra foothills in Jamestown. At the museum, the dioramas of California-oriented steam engines are powerful; at the railroads, real steam powers both lines. The Railtown 1897 shops are something to behold and the equipment has been in many movies and TV shows ("Petticoat Junction"). A 1996 visit to the Railtown produced some poor-quality photos.

Carolwood Historical Society
Dedicated to those who Believe in Magic (well, Magic Kingdom, anyway), the Carolwood keeps the memory of Walt Disney, backyard railroader, alive. It also focuses on the existing steam engines at the various Disney parks.

Golden Gate Live Steamers
One-and-a-half-inch scale railroad group in the Berkeley hills, the group has a small 45mm ground-level track.

Golden Gate Railway Museum

As with many restoration projects, GGRM started with a retired steam loco in a park (or in the case of SP 2472, at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds). Following almost a decade of work, in the mid-1990s the group was evicted from the fairgrounds and relocatd to San Francisco’s Hunters Point (formerly the Naval Shipyard). When the DOD turned the area over to the City of San Francisco for redevelopment, the area needed to be cleaned and the group was evicted again. The collection &ndash which included four diesels, 11 passenger cars and a flatcar and caboose – were scattered to the four winds. SP 2472, which is fully restored and runable, is being stored at Niles Canyon (see Pacific Locomotive Assn. below) and is brought out every now and then for a fund-raising run.

Motive Power Review
Really good lists (surviving E and F units, rotary snowplows) as well as some articles from newsgroups that might be interesting. Also, the main page offers naval and aviation documents.

Napa Valley Wine Train

One of our problems with doing the wine tasting thing in the Napa Valley is that of inebriation and transportation – it’s easy to get drunk if you hit enough wineries. The Wine Train solves this (though you don’t get to stop at the wineries) providing a nice meal as well. Also, it’s E-7 motive power and 1915 Pullman carriages.

National Summer Steamup

Put 100 guys and gals into a 50,000-square-foot hotel ballroom in Sacramento, give them two huge layouts and three or four smaller ones, add some butane, meths, coal and distilled water and you have the National Summer Steamup for small scale (1:13.7-1:32) live steamers. I help organize this event, so I’m undoubtedly prejudiced, but everybody sure has a lot of fun, not only running trains, but at the social events (Saturday night BBQ, door prize drawing), clinics and the dealer room. (And don’t miss the Interesting Links web page).

Nevada Northern

Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.

Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: Computer programmer by day; train buff by night. A wonderful compendium of steam train info; Barris’ table of existing steam trains seems to be thorough, though it’s a good thing all we were looking for was California listings, as the table was too large to completely download.
Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad
A very nice park train in the Los Gatos (San Jose) area.

California Trolley and Railroad Corp.

The merger of the San Jose Trolley Corp. and the Santa Clara Valley Railroad Association has produced a group that plans to build a museum and excursion railroad in the South Bay. The core of the museum will be a roundhouse built on the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. Steam will be provided by Southern Pacific 2479 Baldwin P-10 heavy Pacific (4-6-2), which is currently under reconstruction (progressing apace, one might add).

California State Railroad Museum

Certainly one of the best railroad museums in the United States, the CSRM also runs two railways -- the Sacramento Southern and the Sierra Railroad. The former is based right there in Old Sacramento alongside the museum; the latter is in the Sierra foothills in Jamestown. At the museum, the dioramas of California-oriented steam engines are powerful; at the railroads, real steam powers both lines. The Railtown 1897 shops are something to behold and the equipment has been in many movies and TV shows ("Petticoat Junction"). A 1996 visit to the Railtown produced some poor-quality photos.

Carolwood Historical Society
Dedicated to those who Believe in Magic (well, Magic Kingdom, anyway), the Carolwood keeps the memory of Walt Disney, backyard railroader, alive. It also focuses on the existing steam engines at the various Disney parks.

Golden Gate Live Steamers
One-and-a-half-inch scale railroad group in the Berkeley hills, the group has a small 45mm ground-level track.

Golden Gate Railway Museum

As with many restoration projects, GGRM started with a retired steam loco in a park (or in the case of SP 2472, at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds). Following almost a decade of work, in the mid-1990s the group was evicted from the fairgrounds and relocatd to San Francisco’s Hunters Point (formerly the Naval Shipyard). When the DOD turned the area over to the City of San Francisco for redevelopment, the area needed to be cleaned and the group was evicted again. The collection &ndash which included four diesels, 11 passenger cars and a flatcar and caboose – were scattered to the four winds. SP 2472, which is fully restored and runable, is being stored at Niles Canyon (see Pacific Locomotive Assn. below) and is brought out every now and then for a fund-raising run.

Motive Power Review
Really good lists (surviving E and F units, rotary snowplows) as well as some articles from newsgroups that might be interesting. Also, the main page offers naval and aviation documents.

Napa Valley Wine Train

One of our problems with doing the wine tasting thing in the Napa Valley is that of inebriation and transportation – it’s easy to get drunk if you hit enough wineries. The Wine Train solves this (though you don’t get to stop at the wineries) providing a nice meal as well. Also, it’s E-7 motive power and 1915 Pullman carriages.

National Summer Steamup

Put 100 guys and gals into a 50,000-square-foot hotel ballroom in Sacramento, give them two huge layouts and three or four smaller ones, add some butane, meths, coal and distilled water and you have the National Summer Steamup for small scale (1:13.7-1:32) live steamers. I help organize this event, so I’m undoubtedly prejudiced, but everybody sure has a lot of fun, not only running trains, but at the social events (Saturday night BBQ, door prize drawing), clinics and the dealer room. (And don’t miss the Interesting Links web page).

Nevada Northern

Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.

Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: A very nice park train in the Los Gatos (San Jose) area.
California Trolley and Railroad Corp.

The merger of the San Jose Trolley Corp. and the Santa Clara Valley Railroad Association has produced a group that plans to build a museum and excursion railroad in the South Bay. The core of the museum will be a roundhouse built on the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. Steam will be provided by Southern Pacific 2479 Baldwin P-10 heavy Pacific (4-6-2), which is currently under reconstruction (progressing apace, one might add).

California State Railroad Museum

Certainly one of the best railroad museums in the United States, the CSRM also runs two railways -- the Sacramento Southern and the Sierra Railroad. The former is based right there in Old Sacramento alongside the museum; the latter is in the Sierra foothills in Jamestown. At the museum, the dioramas of California-oriented steam engines are powerful; at the railroads, real steam powers both lines. The Railtown 1897 shops are something to behold and the equipment has been in many movies and TV shows ("Petticoat Junction"). A 1996 visit to the Railtown produced some poor-quality photos.

Carolwood Historical Society
Dedicated to those who Believe in Magic (well, Magic Kingdom, anyway), the Carolwood keeps the memory of Walt Disney, backyard railroader, alive. It also focuses on the existing steam engines at the various Disney parks.

Golden Gate Live Steamers
One-and-a-half-inch scale railroad group in the Berkeley hills, the group has a small 45mm ground-level track.

Golden Gate Railway Museum

As with many restoration projects, GGRM started with a retired steam loco in a park (or in the case of SP 2472, at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds). Following almost a decade of work, in the mid-1990s the group was evicted from the fairgrounds and relocatd to San Francisco’s Hunters Point (formerly the Naval Shipyard). When the DOD turned the area over to the City of San Francisco for redevelopment, the area needed to be cleaned and the group was evicted again. The collection &ndash which included four diesels, 11 passenger cars and a flatcar and caboose – were scattered to the four winds. SP 2472, which is fully restored and runable, is being stored at Niles Canyon (see Pacific Locomotive Assn. below) and is brought out every now and then for a fund-raising run.

Motive Power Review
Really good lists (surviving E and F units, rotary snowplows) as well as some articles from newsgroups that might be interesting. Also, the main page offers naval and aviation documents.

Napa Valley Wine Train

One of our problems with doing the wine tasting thing in the Napa Valley is that of inebriation and transportation – it’s easy to get drunk if you hit enough wineries. The Wine Train solves this (though you don’t get to stop at the wineries) providing a nice meal as well. Also, it’s E-7 motive power and 1915 Pullman carriages.

National Summer Steamup

Put 100 guys and gals into a 50,000-square-foot hotel ballroom in Sacramento, give them two huge layouts and three or four smaller ones, add some butane, meths, coal and distilled water and you have the National Summer Steamup for small scale (1:13.7-1:32) live steamers. I help organize this event, so I’m undoubtedly prejudiced, but everybody sure has a lot of fun, not only running trains, but at the social events (Saturday night BBQ, door prize drawing), clinics and the dealer room. (And don’t miss the Interesting Links web page).

Nevada Northern

Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.

Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: The merger of the San Jose Trolley Corp. and the Santa Clara Valley Railroad Association has produced a group that plans to build a museum and excursion railroad in the South Bay. The core of the museum will be a roundhouse built on the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. Steam will be provided by Southern Pacific 2479 Baldwin P-10 heavy Pacific (4-6-2), which is currently under reconstruction (progressing apace, one might add).
California State Railroad Museum

Certainly one of the best railroad museums in the United States, the CSRM also runs two railways -- the Sacramento Southern and the Sierra Railroad. The former is based right there in Old Sacramento alongside the museum; the latter is in the Sierra foothills in Jamestown. At the museum, the dioramas of California-oriented steam engines are powerful; at the railroads, real steam powers both lines. The Railtown 1897 shops are something to behold and the equipment has been in many movies and TV shows ("Petticoat Junction"). A 1996 visit to the Railtown produced some poor-quality photos.

Carolwood Historical Society
Dedicated to those who Believe in Magic (well, Magic Kingdom, anyway), the Carolwood keeps the memory of Walt Disney, backyard railroader, alive. It also focuses on the existing steam engines at the various Disney parks.

Golden Gate Live Steamers
One-and-a-half-inch scale railroad group in the Berkeley hills, the group has a small 45mm ground-level track.

Golden Gate Railway Museum

As with many restoration projects, GGRM started with a retired steam loco in a park (or in the case of SP 2472, at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds). Following almost a decade of work, in the mid-1990s the group was evicted from the fairgrounds and relocatd to San Francisco’s Hunters Point (formerly the Naval Shipyard). When the DOD turned the area over to the City of San Francisco for redevelopment, the area needed to be cleaned and the group was evicted again. The collection &ndash which included four diesels, 11 passenger cars and a flatcar and caboose – were scattered to the four winds. SP 2472, which is fully restored and runable, is being stored at Niles Canyon (see Pacific Locomotive Assn. below) and is brought out every now and then for a fund-raising run.

Motive Power Review
Really good lists (surviving E and F units, rotary snowplows) as well as some articles from newsgroups that might be interesting. Also, the main page offers naval and aviation documents.

Napa Valley Wine Train

One of our problems with doing the wine tasting thing in the Napa Valley is that of inebriation and transportation – it’s easy to get drunk if you hit enough wineries. The Wine Train solves this (though you don’t get to stop at the wineries) providing a nice meal as well. Also, it’s E-7 motive power and 1915 Pullman carriages.

National Summer Steamup

Put 100 guys and gals into a 50,000-square-foot hotel ballroom in Sacramento, give them two huge layouts and three or four smaller ones, add some butane, meths, coal and distilled water and you have the National Summer Steamup for small scale (1:13.7-1:32) live steamers. I help organize this event, so I’m undoubtedly prejudiced, but everybody sure has a lot of fun, not only running trains, but at the social events (Saturday night BBQ, door prize drawing), clinics and the dealer room. (And don’t miss the Interesting Links web page).

Nevada Northern

Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.

Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: Certainly one of the best railroad museums in the United States, the CSRM also runs two railways -- the Sacramento Southern and the Sierra Railroad. The former is based right there in Old Sacramento alongside the museum; the latter is in the Sierra foothills in Jamestown. At the museum, the dioramas of California-oriented steam engines are powerful; at the railroads, real steam powers both lines. The Railtown 1897 shops are something to behold and the equipment has been in many movies and TV shows ("Petticoat Junction"). A 1996 visit to the Railtown produced some poor-quality photos.
Carolwood Historical Society
Dedicated to those who Believe in Magic (well, Magic Kingdom, anyway), the Carolwood keeps the memory of Walt Disney, backyard railroader, alive. It also focuses on the existing steam engines at the various Disney parks.

Golden Gate Live Steamers
One-and-a-half-inch scale railroad group in the Berkeley hills, the group has a small 45mm ground-level track.

Golden Gate Railway Museum

As with many restoration projects, GGRM started with a retired steam loco in a park (or in the case of SP 2472, at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds). Following almost a decade of work, in the mid-1990s the group was evicted from the fairgrounds and relocatd to San Francisco’s Hunters Point (formerly the Naval Shipyard). When the DOD turned the area over to the City of San Francisco for redevelopment, the area needed to be cleaned and the group was evicted again. The collection &ndash which included four diesels, 11 passenger cars and a flatcar and caboose – were scattered to the four winds. SP 2472, which is fully restored and runable, is being stored at Niles Canyon (see Pacific Locomotive Assn. below) and is brought out every now and then for a fund-raising run.

Motive Power Review
Really good lists (surviving E and F units, rotary snowplows) as well as some articles from newsgroups that might be interesting. Also, the main page offers naval and aviation documents.

Napa Valley Wine Train

One of our problems with doing the wine tasting thing in the Napa Valley is that of inebriation and transportation – it’s easy to get drunk if you hit enough wineries. The Wine Train solves this (though you don’t get to stop at the wineries) providing a nice meal as well. Also, it’s E-7 motive power and 1915 Pullman carriages.

National Summer Steamup

Put 100 guys and gals into a 50,000-square-foot hotel ballroom in Sacramento, give them two huge layouts and three or four smaller ones, add some butane, meths, coal and distilled water and you have the National Summer Steamup for small scale (1:13.7-1:32) live steamers. I help organize this event, so I’m undoubtedly prejudiced, but everybody sure has a lot of fun, not only running trains, but at the social events (Saturday night BBQ, door prize drawing), clinics and the dealer room. (And don’t miss the Interesting Links web page).

Nevada Northern

Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.

Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: Dedicated to those who Believe in Magic (well, Magic Kingdom, anyway), the Carolwood keeps the memory of Walt Disney, backyard railroader, alive. It also focuses on the existing steam engines at the various Disney parks.
Golden Gate Live Steamers
One-and-a-half-inch scale railroad group in the Berkeley hills, the group has a small 45mm ground-level track.

Golden Gate Railway Museum

As with many restoration projects, GGRM started with a retired steam loco in a park (or in the case of SP 2472, at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds). Following almost a decade of work, in the mid-1990s the group was evicted from the fairgrounds and relocatd to San Francisco’s Hunters Point (formerly the Naval Shipyard). When the DOD turned the area over to the City of San Francisco for redevelopment, the area needed to be cleaned and the group was evicted again. The collection &ndash which included four diesels, 11 passenger cars and a flatcar and caboose – were scattered to the four winds. SP 2472, which is fully restored and runable, is being stored at Niles Canyon (see Pacific Locomotive Assn. below) and is brought out every now and then for a fund-raising run.

Motive Power Review
Really good lists (surviving E and F units, rotary snowplows) as well as some articles from newsgroups that might be interesting. Also, the main page offers naval and aviation documents.

Napa Valley Wine Train

One of our problems with doing the wine tasting thing in the Napa Valley is that of inebriation and transportation – it’s easy to get drunk if you hit enough wineries. The Wine Train solves this (though you don’t get to stop at the wineries) providing a nice meal as well. Also, it’s E-7 motive power and 1915 Pullman carriages.

National Summer Steamup

Put 100 guys and gals into a 50,000-square-foot hotel ballroom in Sacramento, give them two huge layouts and three or four smaller ones, add some butane, meths, coal and distilled water and you have the National Summer Steamup for small scale (1:13.7-1:32) live steamers. I help organize this event, so I’m undoubtedly prejudiced, but everybody sure has a lot of fun, not only running trains, but at the social events (Saturday night BBQ, door prize drawing), clinics and the dealer room. (And don’t miss the Interesting Links web page).

Nevada Northern

Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.

Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: One-and-a-half-inch scale railroad group in the Berkeley hills, the group has a small 45mm ground-level track.
Golden Gate Railway Museum

As with many restoration projects, GGRM started with a retired steam loco in a park (or in the case of SP 2472, at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds). Following almost a decade of work, in the mid-1990s the group was evicted from the fairgrounds and relocatd to San Francisco’s Hunters Point (formerly the Naval Shipyard). When the DOD turned the area over to the City of San Francisco for redevelopment, the area needed to be cleaned and the group was evicted again. The collection &ndash which included four diesels, 11 passenger cars and a flatcar and caboose – were scattered to the four winds. SP 2472, which is fully restored and runable, is being stored at Niles Canyon (see Pacific Locomotive Assn. below) and is brought out every now and then for a fund-raising run.

Motive Power Review
Really good lists (surviving E and F units, rotary snowplows) as well as some articles from newsgroups that might be interesting. Also, the main page offers naval and aviation documents.

Napa Valley Wine Train

One of our problems with doing the wine tasting thing in the Napa Valley is that of inebriation and transportation – it’s easy to get drunk if you hit enough wineries. The Wine Train solves this (though you don’t get to stop at the wineries) providing a nice meal as well. Also, it’s E-7 motive power and 1915 Pullman carriages.

National Summer Steamup

Put 100 guys and gals into a 50,000-square-foot hotel ballroom in Sacramento, give them two huge layouts and three or four smaller ones, add some butane, meths, coal and distilled water and you have the National Summer Steamup for small scale (1:13.7-1:32) live steamers. I help organize this event, so I’m undoubtedly prejudiced, but everybody sure has a lot of fun, not only running trains, but at the social events (Saturday night BBQ, door prize drawing), clinics and the dealer room. (And don’t miss the Interesting Links web page).

Nevada Northern

Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.

Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: As with many restoration projects, GGRM started with a retired steam loco in a park (or in the case of SP 2472, at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds). Following almost a decade of work, in the mid-1990s the group was evicted from the fairgrounds and relocatd to San Francisco’s Hunters Point (formerly the Naval Shipyard). When the DOD turned the area over to the City of San Francisco for redevelopment, the area needed to be cleaned and the group was evicted again. The collection &ndash which included four diesels, 11 passenger cars and a flatcar and caboose – were scattered to the four winds. SP 2472, which is fully restored and runable, is being stored at Niles Canyon (see Pacific Locomotive Assn. below) and is brought out every now and then for a fund-raising run.
Motive Power Review
Really good lists (surviving E and F units, rotary snowplows) as well as some articles from newsgroups that might be interesting. Also, the main page offers naval and aviation documents.

Napa Valley Wine Train

One of our problems with doing the wine tasting thing in the Napa Valley is that of inebriation and transportation – it’s easy to get drunk if you hit enough wineries. The Wine Train solves this (though you don’t get to stop at the wineries) providing a nice meal as well. Also, it’s E-7 motive power and 1915 Pullman carriages.

National Summer Steamup

Put 100 guys and gals into a 50,000-square-foot hotel ballroom in Sacramento, give them two huge layouts and three or four smaller ones, add some butane, meths, coal and distilled water and you have the National Summer Steamup for small scale (1:13.7-1:32) live steamers. I help organize this event, so I’m undoubtedly prejudiced, but everybody sure has a lot of fun, not only running trains, but at the social events (Saturday night BBQ, door prize drawing), clinics and the dealer room. (And don’t miss the Interesting Links web page).

Nevada Northern

Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.

Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: Really good lists (surviving E and F units, rotary snowplows) as well as some articles from newsgroups that might be interesting. Also, the main page offers naval and aviation documents.
Napa Valley Wine Train

One of our problems with doing the wine tasting thing in the Napa Valley is that of inebriation and transportation – it’s easy to get drunk if you hit enough wineries. The Wine Train solves this (though you don’t get to stop at the wineries) providing a nice meal as well. Also, it’s E-7 motive power and 1915 Pullman carriages.

National Summer Steamup

Put 100 guys and gals into a 50,000-square-foot hotel ballroom in Sacramento, give them two huge layouts and three or four smaller ones, add some butane, meths, coal and distilled water and you have the National Summer Steamup for small scale (1:13.7-1:32) live steamers. I help organize this event, so I’m undoubtedly prejudiced, but everybody sure has a lot of fun, not only running trains, but at the social events (Saturday night BBQ, door prize drawing), clinics and the dealer room. (And don’t miss the Interesting Links web page).

Nevada Northern

Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.

Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: One of our problems with doing the wine tasting thing in the Napa Valley is that of inebriation and transportation – it’s easy to get drunk if you hit enough wineries. The Wine Train solves this (though you don’t get to stop at the wineries) providing a nice meal as well. Also, it’s E-7 motive power and 1915 Pullman carriages.
National Summer Steamup

Put 100 guys and gals into a 50,000-square-foot hotel ballroom in Sacramento, give them two huge layouts and three or four smaller ones, add some butane, meths, coal and distilled water and you have the National Summer Steamup for small scale (1:13.7-1:32) live steamers. I help organize this event, so I’m undoubtedly prejudiced, but everybody sure has a lot of fun, not only running trains, but at the social events (Saturday night BBQ, door prize drawing), clinics and the dealer room. (And don’t miss the Interesting Links web page).

Nevada Northern

Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.

Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: Put 100 guys and gals into a 50,000-square-foot hotel ballroom in Sacramento, give them two huge layouts and three or four smaller ones, add some butane, meths, coal and distilled water and you have the National Summer Steamup for small scale (1:13.7-1:32) live steamers. I help organize this event, so I’m undoubtedly prejudiced, but everybody sure has a lot of fun, not only running trains, but at the social events (Saturday night BBQ, door prize drawing), clinics and the dealer room. (And don’t miss the Interesting Links web page).
Nevada Northern

Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.

Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: Probably the most extensive tourist railroad/museum in the West (aside from the California state museum), this operation attempts to preserve a copper-mining railroad in Eastern Nevada founded in 1906. Over 56 acres, it has dozens of buildings (including a fully equipped machine shop), three steam locomotives (two operational, one awaiting restoration), two diesels and a passle of rolling stock. This museum is literally in the middle of nowhere: Ely, Nev., is 320 miles due east of Reno on Highway 50, or 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Highway 93. Excursion trains run daily in the summer and are about $25 a ride.
Nevada State Railroad Museum

There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: There are interesting things happening at the NSRM, details of which are provided by this “Friends of” site. The main goal of the NSRM is the preservation of much of the Virginia & Truckee equipment. The lastest project at the NSRM is the preservation of what is one of the last McKeen Motor Car in the world; I’ve only been able to put my finger on this one and one in Anchorage, Alaska, though there are rumors of one in Australia and/or maybe Utah. Why do McKeens intereset me? A McKeen ran on the Santa Fe tracks from Richmond to Oakland in the Teens and ’20s. Also see Official Nevada State Railroad Museum site.
The Orange Empire Railway Museum

Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.

Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: Certainly one of the largest collections of equipment anywhere (225 pieces, including city and interurban streetcars (horse, cable and electric), locomotives (electric, steam and diesel), passenger and freight cars. A couple of San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC cars are on the site (though not restored). The organization runs a “demonstration railway” that includes a half-mile loop of dual-gauge (both standard and 3-foot-6-inch) as well as 1.5 miles of main line. Trolleys run weekends and holidays on the loop; interurbans and locomotives on the main line. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (about a two-hour drive from Disneyland), but well worth the visit.
Pacific Locomotive Association

The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.

Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: The PLA – which operates the Niles Canyon Railway – was my first introduction to steam preservation. The group ran its equipment on the Castro Point Railway at Point Molate in Richmond from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s and as a teenager, I stood in awe of the men and equipment. Relocated to Niles Canyon (southeast of Oakland), the PLA has expanded its rolling stock and has more than six miles of track. The PLA is also building a roundhouse and is moving the original Niles Train Station to its original site. Excursions are run the first and third Sundays of every month; the Canyon is lovely any time of year and this is a good way to ride steam in the Bay Area.
Portola Railroad Museum
The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).

Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: The official site of the Feather River Railway Society and Western Pacific Railroad History Society, a museum dedicated to preserving the FRR shops and equipment in Portola, Calif. (it’s about two hours west of Reno). Along with an extensive collection of diesel-electric equipment and rolling stock, FRRS offers tours of the shops, weekend excursion trips and the ability to rent an F7 and run it yourself (here’s a site where the author relates his experience at the F7 controls).
Redwood Valley Railway
The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: The live-steam park railroad of the Berkeley hills, Redwood Valley supports 15-inch gauge equipment. There are four locomotives and a full set of gondola rolling stock with seats. The basis of the railroad was an engine – The Cricket – built by Oakland mechanical engineer Erich Thompson in his garage in the 1940s. The Cricket was a 12-inch gauge locomotive and proved to be impractical for a park railroad (only one adult per seat), so Thompson and his cronies recreated the railroad in 15-inches and built up new locomotives and rolling stock (The Cricket was sold to the Folsom Valley Railway). Thompson died in 1995 but his memory lives on not only in the equipment at RVRY, but in a whole group of live-steam enthusiasts throughout the West, who bring their locomotives to Berkeley's Tilden Park every June for a gathering and anniversary run.
Roaring Camp & Big Trees

As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.

Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: As the PR says, the RC&BTNGRR (that’s for “narrow gauge railroad") is “nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains” and provides an interesting steam experience, just 90 minutes from downtown San Francisco, weekends and holidays December through March and seven days a week the rest of the year. A tourist railroad running through the redwood trees, the RC&BTNGRR essentially goes up to the top of a mountain and comes back down. But the staff intreprets the activities as well as most railway museums and if you need a steam train fix, it’s an easy trip.
Sacramento Northern On-Line

A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.

Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: A good site about the electrified railway that once ran throughout the Sacramento Delta and Valley areas. Histories, pictures and associated links are all provided. There are also bibliographies as well as a good roster of existing SN equipment.
Santa Cruz Lumber Co.
This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).

Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: This is a wonderful site that takes you on a tour of Dwight Ennis’ truly great garden railroad (steam-powered, natch) in Silicon Valley (just over the hill from the real Santa Cruz Lumber Co., whose history Dwight doesn’t neglect). Not only does Dwight give you pictures of his layout, but he explains the origins of many features (be sure to visit Mick-elangelo Falls).
Society For The Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.

Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: Most of the narrow-gauge railroad infrastructure in the Northern California of the late 1800s – bridges, trestles, cars – was built by the Carter Brothers, who set up shop in what we know today as Fremont, Calif. This group has preserved some cars and has done extensive work in recreating Carter Bros. trucks, having built patterns and had many cast.
Swanton Pacific Railway Society
The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.

Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: The Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1914 in San Francisco boasted a 19-inch gauge live steam railway as its transportation system. As the years passed, so did the equipment, which was eventually brought together at a ranch in Santa Cruz County. This group, which is an adjunct to the California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo (long story), maintains the equipment and runs it about a dozen times a year.
Western Railway Museum

Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.: Called “a project of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association,” the WRM of Sonoma County, Calif., is really devoted to streetcars. Nonetheless, it has a fully functional trolley system (runs out about three miles from the museum grounds) and offers diesel excursions on a frequent basis. The new visitors’ center opened in late 1999.

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