The California State Railroad Museum, part of the California State Parks system, is located at 111 I St in Sacramento, CA.
The museum had its origins in 1937, when a group of railroad enthusiasts in the San Francisco Bay Area formed the Pacific Coast Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society. They worked for years acquiring equipment and promoting the idea of a railroad museum, eventually donating thirty historic locomotives, wagons and coaches to the California Department of Parks and Recreation to form the nucleus of the museum.
The museum has a relatively small collection, but one of considerable historic significance in terms of western US railroads, particularly, the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific. I visited when only the main building was open, which meant I did not get to see all the museum’s motive power (some locomotives were locked in the Central Pacific depot). The museum also operates steam excursions in summer using its own motive power and, occasionally, motive power from other museums and historic collections.
The museum building is of somewhat incongruously modern design, given its setting in the Old Sacramento State Historic Park, the historic region of downtown Sacramento, CA.
Since the 1960s, the area has been developed as a tourist attraction, with restoration of its predominantly 19th Century buildings, cobbled streets and historic waterfront.
The museum building opened in 1981.
Before the new building opened, the museum was housed in the Central Pacific Railroad Depot (below), a recreation of the original building that opened in 1976.
During the Summer season, visitors can explore the depot building, and steam excursions depart from here for Miller Park.
The excursion goes about a mile south along the Sacramento River and back, using the museum's tourist line, the Sacramento Southern Railroad.
Like an increasing number of institutes, the CSRM does not allow camera tripods in the museum (leave yours in your car or expect to check it behind the ticket desk). But, because the displays are mostly indoors, with relatively low lighting, getting good photographs can be somewhat difficult, as many of the photographs on this page demonstrate!
In the museum foyer is Overfair Railway #1915, a 19" gauge Pacific (4-6-2) locomotive.
The Overfair Railway ran five miles through the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, CA. Five locomotives were built for the railroad based on the Alco designed SP P-6 class. Four of them hauled scale passenger and freight cars specially built for the exposition, but #1915, was never used.
The Overfair locomotives were 17' long and weighed 12 tons empty. The 12' long wagontop boiler was 30" in diameter at the smokebox. They operated at 200 psi with 26" drivers and 9" x 10.5" cylinders.
Fittingly, the first locomotive you encounter in the collection is the first ordered by the Central Pacific Railroad.
#1 "Gov. Stanford" is an American type (4-4-0) locomotive built in 1862 by Richard Norris & Sons of Philadelphia, then one of the largest locomotive manufacturers in the US.
Disassembled and shipped around Cape Horn, it arrived in Sacramento in October 1863. Once reassembled, it was named after the railroad's president, who was also Governor of California. It hauled the CP's first excursion train, first revenue freight and first scheduled passenger train.
Downgraded from mainline service in 1873, #1 worked as a switcher and fire engine in the Sacramento area until retired in 1895. It was then donated to the Leland Stanford University and, soon after, went on display in the university's museum.
It is currently on loan to the CSRM by the university.
Also on display is the Southern Pacific's first locomotive, named for the company's then vice-president. It was originally purchased by the Central Pacific in 1863 as #3 from Danforth, Cooke & Co., Patterson, NJ.
It was transferred to the Southern Pacific in 1871, when it was renumbered #1.
The "C. P. Huntington" is the only surviving example of a 4-2-4 locomotive in the US It is also the oldest locomotive owned by the museum, and features on the museum's logo. It weighs 43,500 lbs, has 54" drivers and 11" x 15" cylinders. A coal burner, it operated at a boiler pressure of 110 psi and delivered tractive effort of 3,570 lbs.
As #3, the locomotive began service on the Central Pacific in 1864 and, as well as hauling passenger trains, helped construct the transcontinental railroad. After transferring to the Southern Pacific, it operated as a light construction engine between San Jose and Hollister, CA, then in Oakland, before ending its career as a weed burner, clearing track.
However, from 1894, it increasingly became a symbol of the Southern Pacific Railroad, making numerous appearances at station openings and railroad exhibitions, including the 1915 San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the 1934 Chicago Railroad Fair and the 1969 Sacramento Gold Spike Centennial Celebration.
Donated to the State of California in 1964, #3 went on display at the old state fairgrounds on Stockton Blvd, Sacramento. Then, in 1979 it moved to the Central Pacific Railroad Passenger Station in Old Sacramento.
It has been restored to how it appeared for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
#12 "Genoa" was built by Baldwin for the Virginia & Truckee in 1873 at a cost of $14,000. An American type (4-4-0), it is one of the oldest operable steam locomotives in the US.
From 1870, the V&T connected the Comstock silver mines around Virginia City with quartz reduction mills near Carson City, NV.
In 1872, a thirty-one mile line north from Carson City to Reno connected to the transcontinental railroad, leading to an increase in passenger trains. #12 was ordered to meet this need.
Twenty-five thousand 4-4-0 locomotives were built in the US, more than any other type. The nearest rival in number was the Consolidation (2-8-0), twenty-one thousand of which were built.
For thirty-five years, #12 mainly hauled passenger trains, but also freight, between Carson City, Virginia City and Reno, NV, on the V&T.
The locomotive operated at a boiler pressure of 130 psi delivering tractive effort of 11,920 lbs. It weighs 65,000 lbs empty, has 16" x 24" cylinders and 56¾" drivers.
#12 was retired in 1908 and, in 1938, was sold to Eastern Railroads in New York. It then began a new career appearing at various railroad exhibitions. In 1940, it was presented to the Pacific Coast Chapter of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society and shipped to the Western Pacific Roundhouse in Oakland, CA.
The locomotive was restored to look like Central Pacific's #60 "Jupiter" for the 1939-40 New York World Fair and, in 1969, also appeared as "Jupiter" at the Golden Spike Centennial ceremony at Promontory, UT. (You can see a replica of the "Jupiter" on the Golden Spike NHS page on this website.) That year, it was donated to the State of Nevada and loaned to the museum.
After its last wood-fired operation under steam in May 1979, #12 was restored to its 1902 appearance with a Sunflower smoke stack. It is displayed with VT Combination Car #16 on an 1884 Phoenix Bridge Co., cast-iron railroad bridge.
VT #13 "Empire" was built by Baldwin for the Virginia & Truckee in 1873 at a cost of $15,250. As with passenger services, the V&T's 1870 connection with the transcontinental railroad at Reno, NV, had greatly increased demand for freight services, and #13 was purchased to meet that growing demand.
It is a Mogul (2-6-0) type locomotive, purchased to haul freight, with 48" drivers and 16" x 24" cylinders. It weighs 70,000 lbs and operated at a boiler pressure of 130 psi delivering 14,600 lbs tractive effort.
In 1910, it was converted from a wood burner to an oil burner, and was renumbered #15, perhaps because engine crews thought #13 unlucky.
With declining business on the V&T, however, #13 was retired in 1918 and was then sold to the Pacific Portland Cement Company, in Gerlach, NV, in 1924. There, it operated as switcher #501 until retired again in 1931.
In 1938, it was donated to the Pacific Coast Chapter of the RLHS and placed in storage in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 1976, #13 was moved to join the museum's collection at the newly built Central Pacific Railroad Passenger Station in Sacramento.
Two years later, a total restoration of the locomotive was carried out by the museum. This was based on period photographs and original drawings, which returned #13 to very much how it looked when it was built in 1873.
The restored locomotive went on display in the new museum building when it opened in 1981.
#12 was built by Baldwin in 1876 for the narrow gauge (36") North Pacific Coast Railroad. Named "Sonoma", it probably hauled both passenger and freight trains on the eighty mile line between Sausalito and Duncans Mills, CA. Built as a wood burning American type (4-4-0) locomotive, it was later converted to burn oil. It weighs 39,000 lbs and has 42" drivers and 12" x 16" cylinders. Operating at a boiler pressure of 135 psi, it delivered 6,100 lbs tractive effort
In 1879, #12 was sold to the Nevada Central Railroad, renumbered #5 and named "General J. H. Ledlie" after the eponymous civil engineer then working for the railroad, but who had also participated in construction of the transcontinental railroad as a Union Pacific employee. That year, Ledlie had raced to get the ninety-two mile Nevada Central line completed from Battle Mountain to Austin, NV, before the railroad's bond issue expired. He and his construction gang had reached within just two miles of the city limits of Austin when the deadline expired but, at the last minute, town officials took the expedient step of extending the city limits to meet the tracks!
The following year, #5 was renamed "Jos. Collett". It worked as switcher and road engine until the railroad was abandoned in 1938, when it was acquired by Nevada Central's General Manager, J. M. Hiskey. Hiskey then loaned it to the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939 for cosmetic alteration to look like Central Pacific's #60, the "Jupiter" and display at the Exposition's Treasure Island.
#12 appeared daily from 1939 until 1940 in the "Cavalcade of the Golden West", the Exposition's re-enactment of completion of the transcontinental railroad at Promontory, UT (you can see the Golden Spike NHS page of this website).
After the Exposition closed, #12 was donated to the Oakland Chapter of the RLHS and went into storage in the San Francisco Bay Area, where it remained until it was moved to the newly built Central Pacific Railroad Passenger Station in 1977.
The Hiskey family donated #12 to the museum in 1978. Restored to its 1876 appearance by the museum, it is displayed coupled to some narrow gauge passenger cars.
#1 is a narrow gauge (36") oil burning Mogul type (2-6-0) locomotive built by Baldwin in 1879 for the Utah Northern, although it also operated on the Golconda & Adelaide and the Nevada Central Railroad, as well as the Nevada Short Line Railway.
The NSL operated a 12.6 mile line between Oreana (also known as Nenzel) and the silver mining area of Rochester, NV.
#1 weighs 54,000 lbs, has 40" drivers and 12" x 18" cylinders. It had a tractive effort of 4,900 lbs. Like North Pacific Coast #12, it last steamed at the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco in the daily re-enactments of the 1869 Golden Spike ceremony.
This 0-6-0 is one of thirty S-51 switchers built by Lima in 1920 for the Union Pacific.
#4466 is a coal burner that operated at a boiler pressure of 180 psi, delivering a total tractive effort of 34,400 lbs. It weighs 160,000 lbs, and has 51" drivers and 21" x 26" cylinders.
#4466 worked most of its life in Cheyenne, WY, as well as in Grand Island, NE.
It was retired in 1962 and gifted to the museum by the Pacific Coast Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society in 1978 and, for many years it hauled the museum's steam excursions.
#2467 is one of fifteen heavy Pacific type locomotives (4-6-2) built by Baldwin in 1921 for the Southern Pacific Railroad. During the next decade, it regularly hauled passenger trains on the Ogden, UT, to Sparks, NV, division, part of the railroad's "Overland Route". Then, in the next few years, it hauled many other passenger services in the California area.
#2467 is an oil burner, weighing 300,000 lbs. It operated at a boiler pressure of 210 psi, delivering a total tractive effort of 45,800 lbs. Its drivers are 73" and the cylinders are 25" x 30".
#2467 retired from service in 1956, but was returned to operation in 1999 by the Pacific Locomotive Association on the Niles Canyon Railway, a heritage railway operating in the San Francisco Bay Area.
It is owned by the City of Oakland, CA. Although operable, #2467 is currently on static display on loan to the museum from the Pacific Locomotive Association. On the left, you can see that the right hand cylinder has been opened up to give the suggestion that the locomotive is undergoing repairs. The female mannequin on the front pilot is intended to add to the effect!
#4294 is the museum's "signature engine", the only surviving example of twenty Southern Pacific articulated
4-8-8-2 cab-forward locomotives built by Baldwin in 1944.
It is 127' long, weighs 657,900 lbs, operated at a boiler pressure of 250 psi, has 63" drivers and two sets of 24" x 32" cylinders. It delivered tractive effort of 24,300 lbs.
Although singular locomotives, I do not find cab-forwards particularly attractive.
Front on, they resemble diesels, and the extended "monkey deck" between the smokebox and tender just looks out of place to me.
#4294 was the last steam locomotive delivered to the Southern Pacific.
It served from 1944 to 1956, hauling both freight and passenger trains in Oregon as well as California, including the Overland Limited, over the Donner Pass between Sacramento, CA, and Sparks, NV.
The last cab-forward revenue service was hauled by AC-10 #4211 from Oakland to Davis and Roseville on 30th November 1956. AC-11 #4274 made the last cab forward run over Donner Pass in November 1957.
The cab-forward was developed by the Southern Pacific to deal with problems created by its thirty-nine tunnels and nearly forty miles of snow sheds in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. These could funnel exhaust fumes back into the cab of conventional locomotives and, after a number of crews nearly asphyxiated, the railroad experimented by running locomotives in reverse. However, this meant the tender blocked the crew's view and put them on the "wrong" sides of the cab to see signals.
The SP then commissioned Baldwin to build a cab-forward, and the first fifteen 2-8-8-2s were delivered in 1910. Baldwin eventually built two hundred and fifty-six cab-forwards for the company. No other US railroad ordered cab-forwards although some, like the Western Pacific, did consider them, and they soon became a symbol of the Southern Pacific.
#4294 was retired in 1956 and, had it not been for the efforts of the Pacific Coast Chapter of the RLHS, it would probably have been scrapped along with all of the other Southern Pacific cab-forwards, but the SP was eventually convinced to donate #4294 to the City of Sacramento.
The locomotive went on display at the Southern Pacific depot next to the
"C. P. Huntington" in 1958 but construction of the I-5 interchange required it go into storage in 1967. Donated to the museum by the SP in 1977, it moved to the newly opened museum building in 1981.
#913 is a 1,500 hp F7 built by EMD in 1950. Two thousand, three hundred and sixty-six F7 cab-equipped A units and one thousand four hundred and eighty-three cabless or "B" units were built between 1949 and 1953.
The F7 was the fourth in EMD's line of F-unit locomotives, and was the highest-selling cab unit of all time.
For thirty-one years, #913 hauled freight and passenger trains between Oakland, CA, and Salt Lake City, UT.
Many F7s were in service for decades, rostered on railroads from Alaska to Maine. They also hauled some of the most famous trains in the US such as AT&SF's El Capitan and Super Chief, GN's Empire Builder and NP's North Coast Limited. As a result, the design has forged a place in popular imagination as the epitome of streamlined diesel-electric motive power.
The Western Pacific rostered four F-7 units (now often referred to by fans as the "Fab Four"). All four have survived:
#913 - donated to California State Railroad Museum 1981
#917 - donated to Western Railway Museum 1983
#918 - donated to Pacific Locomotive Association 1981
#921 - donated to City of Portola, CA, 1983
Another thirty-four F7 A and B units have been preserved in the US and Canada.
