The Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad (NCNGRR) (nickname: Never Come, Never Go) was located in Northern California's Nevada County and Placer County, where it connected with the Central Pacific Railroad.[1] The Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Company incorporated on April 4, 1874,[2] and was headquartered in Grass Valley, California. After two years of construction, passenger and commercial rail services began in 1876 and continued until 1943. The 22.53mi (36.26km) line ran from Colfax, north through Grass Valley to Nevada City. At one time, the railroad was notable for having the highest railroad bridge in California, the Bear River Bridge, built in 1908.[3]
History
Nevada County Narrow Gauge RR #5, at Colfax, California. This engine still exists and is at the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum in Nevada City, California (Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley Collection).Restored Nevada County Narrow Gauge #5 on display during a visit to the Nevada State Railroad Museum in 2022.Route in 1895 from Nevada City to Grass ValleyRoute from Grass Valley to Colfax in 1902Route from Grass Valley to Colfax in 1938
The need for rail service in the semi-mountainous and wooded area of Grass Valley and Nevada City was precipitated by mining operations subsequent to the California Gold Rush. In addition, timber operators wanted to make their land accessible to the Southern Pacific Company in Colfax. On January 24, 1874, Charles Marsh, who was a prominent citizen of Nevada City (he was a civil engineer and a founder of the Central Pacific Railroad) and 19 others organized a "Committee of Twenty" to build a narrow-gauge railroad from Nevada City and Grass Valley to connect with the transcontinental railroad at Colfax. Marsh also served as chairman of the executive committee of the Nevada & Grass Valley Railroad Association, and with his surveying/engineering background undoubtedly had a significant role in the planning of the railroad. He was also one of the initial investors, purchasing $10,000 worth of stock (a 5% stake).[4][5][6]
J. H. Bates estimated that construction and equipment would total $411,132. Only one bid came in and it was for $500,000, signed by M. F. Beatty; he received a lump sum of $500,000. Construction began January 1875.[9] Turton & Knox were subcontracted for earthwork. John Flint Kidder was the chief engineer. Within two months, 600 men were employed in the railroad's construction.[10]
Construction included two bridges, two tunnels,[11] and five trestles. After leaving the Colfax depot, the road headed north, parallel with the Central Pacific Railroad, then crossed Bear River, and into Nevada County. One of the first stations was at the town of You Bet, which serviced the Goodwin Drift Gravel Mine.[12] The road proceeded into Chicago Park, a fruit and grape growers colony,[13] and then continued into Grass Valley. All cars and locomotives had Westinghouserailway brakes, and cars used for passenger service had Miller platformcouplers. As the first contractor, Beatty, was unable to complete the project, a second, J. K. Bynre,[14] was brought in; construction was completed in the spring of 1876. The inaugural train, from Colfax to Grass Valley, ran on April 11 and by May 20, the first train reached Nevada City.[15]
N.C.N.G.R.R. №
The company's first President was John C. Coleman, president of the North Star Mine. Kidder, the builder, decided to settle down in Grass Valley, becoming the General Superintendent,[16] and in 1884, became the second president. Upon his death in 1901, Kidder's widow, Sarah, took over, becoming the first female railroad president in the world.[17]
In September 1907, a 3.56mi (5.73km) "cut-off", at a cost of $132,285 (~$3.05million in 2022) was built,[18] bettering the grade.[19] The following year, construction was completed on the Bear River Bridge. By 1912, the NCNGRR was running three mixed trains daily, each way, between Nevada City and Colfax, while a fourth mixed train ran daily, each way, between Grass Valley and Colfax. Sarah Kidder sold her interests in 1913 and retired to San Francisco.
In 1926, Earl Taylor and his associates purchased the railroad for $1. With the outbreak of World War II, they sold it in 1942 for $251,000 (~$3.57million in 2022) to Dulian Steel Products Company and the last train to run over the line was on May 29.[10]
Each combination coach had a small iron safe in the baggage compartment.[20] Though $200,000,000 in gold was hauled out of Nevada County by the NCNGRR during its operation, there was never an attempted robbery.[11]
Bridge over Bear River during construction, 1908
Engine No. 2 crossing the new steel bridge in December 1908
Circus train derailed in 1893, but lions and bears remained in cars
Statistics
Length:
Placer County: The main line was 5.62mi (9.04km) long, and had 1.73mi (2.78km) in spurs and sidings
Nevada County: The main line was 16.79mi (27.02km) long, and had 2.39mi (3.85km) in spurs and sidings.[15]
Maximum grade: 116ft per mile (22 m pro km), 1:45.7 or 2.2%
Purchased from the Carson & Tahoe Lumber & Fluming Company #1. Later donated by Universal Studios to the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Museum where it now operates.
Made from Denver & Rio Grande Western locomotives. The boiler of #42 and the Running Gear of #283. Sold in 1943 to Imperial Portland Cement #8. Scrapped in 1947.
A narrow-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge narrower than 1,435 mmstandard gauge. Most narrow-gauge railways are between 600 mm and 1,067 mm.
Colfax is a city in Placer County, California, at the crossroads of Interstate 80 and State Route 174. The population was 1,963 at the 2010 census. The town is named in honor of U.S. Vice President Schuyler Colfax (1869–73), a bronze statue of whom stands at Railroad Street and Grass Valley Street.
A heritage railway or heritage railroad is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period in the history of rail transport.
The Carson and Colorado Railway was a U.S. 3 ft narrow gauge railroad that ran from Mound House, Nevada, to Keeler, California, below the Cerro Gordo Mines. It was incorporated on May 10, 1880, as the Carson and Colorado Railroad, and construction on the railroad began on May 31, 1880. The narrow gauge track was chosen to reduce cost. Much of the route now parallels U.S. Route 95 Alternate, U.S. Route 95, Nevada State Route 360, U.S. Route 6, and U.S. Route 395.
The Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad (YMSPRR) is a historic 3 ft narrow gauge railroad with two operating steam locomotives located near Fish Camp, California, in the Sierra National Forest near the southern entrance to Yosemite National Park. Rudy Stauffer organized the YMSPRR in 1961, utilizing historic railroad track, rolling stock and locomotives to construct a tourist line along the historic route of the Madera Sugar Pine Lumber Company.
William Jones (1884–1968), a seasoned veteran of the steam era who established the Wildcat Railroad in Los Gatos, California, was born the son of a teamster in the town of Ben Lomond, California, USA.
The Northwestern Pacific Railroad is a 271-mile (436 km) mainline railroad from the ferry connections in Sausalito north to Eureka with a connection to the national railroad system at Schellville. The railroad has gone through a history of different ownership and operators but has maintained a generic name of reference as The Northwestern Pacific Railroad, despite no longer being officially named that. Currently, only a 62-mile (100 km) stretch of mainline from Larkspur to the Sonoma County Airport in Windsor and east to Schellville on the “south end” is operated by Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART), which operates both commuter and freight trains with plans for future extension north to Cloverdale. The “north end” from Willits to Eureka is currently out of service, but saved by 2018 legislation to be converted into the Great Redwood Trail.
The Arcata and Mad River Railroad, founded in 1854, was the oldest working railroad in California. It operated on a unique narrow gauge until the 1940s when standard gauge rails were laid. Service ceased in 1983 due to landslides. It is California Historical Landmark #842.
Sarah Clark Kidder was president of Northern California's Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad (NCNGRR) from 1901 to 1913. She was the first female railroad president in the world.
The North Pacific Coast Railroad (NPC) was a common carrier 3 ft (914 mm) narrow-gauge steam railroad begun in 1874 and sold in 1902 to new owners who renamed it the North Shore Railroad (California) (NSR) and which rebuilt the southern section into a standard-gauge electric railway.
The Pacific Coast Railway was a 3 ft narrow gauge railway on the Central Coast of California. The original 10-mile (16 km) link from San Luis Obispo to Avila Beach and Port Harford was later built southward to Santa Maria and Los Olivos, with branches to Sisquoc and Guadalupe.
Standard gauge was favored for railway construction in the United States, although a fairly large narrow-gauge system developed in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Utah. Isolated narrow-gauge lines were built in many areas to minimize construction costs for industrial transport or resort access, and some of these lines offered common carrier service. Outside Colorado, these isolated lines evolved into regional narrow-gauge systems in Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, Hawaii, and Alaska.
Colfax station is an Amtrak train station in Colfax, California. Served by the California Zephyr, it is unstaffed. The station was built in 1905 by the Southern Pacific Railroad and was restored in the early 21st century; in addition to a waiting room, the building also houses the Colfax Heritage Museum. The platform is movable to accommodate Union Pacific rotary snowplows, which are liable to scrape a platform eight inches above top of rail.
The Eureka & Palisade Railroad was a 3 ft narrow gauge railroad constructed in 1873-1875 between Palisade and Eureka, Nevada, a distance of approximately 85 miles (137 km). The railroad was constructed to connect Eureka, the center of a rich silver mining area, with the national railway network at Palisade.
The Nevada–California–Oregon Railway was a 3 ft narrow gauge railroad originally planned to connect Reno, Nevada, to the Columbia River. However, only 238 mi (383 km) of track were laid so service never extended beyond Lakeview, Oregon. Because of the company’s reputation for mismanagement, it was often called the "Narrow, Crooked & Ornery" railroad.
John Flint Kidder was a politician, civil engineer and railroad executive who built and later owned Northern California's Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad (NCNGRR) which, during its operation, never experienced an attempted robbery.
Union Hill is a former settlement in Nevada County, California, 1.5 mi (2.4 km) from Grass Valley. Its elevation is 2,700 ft (820 m) above sea level.
Glenbrook is a 2-6-0, Mogul type, narrow-gauge steam railway locomotive built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1875 for the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company's 3 ft Lake Tahoe narrow-gauge railroad.
The Bear River Bridge was located in Nevada County, California, from 1908 to 1963, replacing an earlier wooden structure. When built over the Bear River, it was the highest railway bridge in the state.
The Southern California Railway Museum, formerly known as the Orange Empire Railway Museum, is a railroad museum in Perris, California, United States. It was founded in 1956 at Griffith Park in Los Angeles before moving to the former Pinacate Station as the "Orange Empire Trolley Museum" in 1958. It was renamed "Orange Empire Railway Museum" in 1975 after merging with a museum then known as the California Southern Railroad Museum, and adopted its current name in 2019. The museum also operates a heritage railroad on the museum grounds.
↑ "NCNGRR". ncngrrmuseum.org. Archived from the original on 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2009-05-24.
↑ Comstock, David Allan. "Charles Marsh: Our Neglected Pioneer-Genius," Nevada County Historical Society Bulletin, Volume 50, No. 2, April 1996, pp. 15-16, Nevada City, California.
↑ "The Other Ox," The Sacramento Bee, 24 February 1874, p. 2, Sacramento, California.
↑ Lindars, Dom. The Ditches of Nevada City, pp. 789-90, Nevada City History, 2023. ISBN 979-8-218-13147-0 (hardcover) 979-8-218-13148-7 (ebook).
↑ Decisions. California Public Utilities Commission (4ed.). Railroad Commission of the State of California. 1914. pp.552. Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
