Sacramento Southern Railroad | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Sacramento Southern Railroad #2030 performs some local switching duties on the SSRR line located just south of the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento in December, 2004. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Locale | Sacramento Freeport, California; original route was to Walnut Grove | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Terminus | Freeport, California; original route was to Walnut Grove | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Connections | Union Pacific Railroad (Freight) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Commercial operations | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Built by | The original Sacramento Southern Railroad a non-operating subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Company | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Original gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preserved operations | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Owned by | California State Railroad Museum | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Operated by | California State Railroad Museum | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Reporting mark | SSRR | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Length | 3 miles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preserved gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Commercial history | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Opened | 1909 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1912 | Merged with Central Pacific Railroad | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
(?) | Became a part of the SP system | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Closed | 1978 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preservation history | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
c. 1978 | Property acquired by the museum | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
(?) | Freight service resumed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1982 | Excursions started | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Present | In operation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Headquarters | California State Railroad Museum at Sacramento | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Website | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Official website | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Sacramento Southern Railroad is a heritage railway owned by the California State Railroad Museum which operates excursion trains on it. [1] The railroad extends from the museum property located in Old Sacramento State Historic Park south along the east bank of the Sacramento River levee.
The original Sacramento Southern Railroad ran south 24.3 miles (39.1 km) to Walnut Grove, California via Freeport and was a non-operating subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Transportation Company incorporated in 1903. [2]
The line was constructed between 1906–1912, and the first train began operating over the line in 1909. [3] It was merged in 1912 with the Central Pacific Railroad upon completion of the line to Walnut Grove. The line was extended to Isleton by 1929. In 1931, a 3-mile (5 km) extension of the branch reached the Mokelumne River. [3] Southern Pacific ended passenger service on the line the following year. [3]
The railroad later became a part of the SP system who filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission to abandon the line, and did so on October 10, 1978. [3] Around that time the California State Railroad Museum started acquiring the rail property, and started excursions in 1982. [3] Recent years have seen a resurgence in the road's freight business, serving a number of local industries via an interchange with the Union Pacific Railroad. Future plans call for expanding operations southward into the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta area.
The Oregon Electric Railway (OE) was an interurban railroad line in the U.S. state of Oregon that linked Portland to Eugene.
The California State Railroad Museum is a museum in the California State Parks system that interprets the role of railroads in the West. It is located in Old Sacramento State Historic Park at 111 I Street, Sacramento, California.
The Chicago and North Western was a Class I railroad in the Midwestern United States. It was also known as the "North Western". The railroad operated more than 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of track at the turn of the 20th century, and over 12,000 miles (19,000 km) of track in seven states before retrenchment in the late 1970s. Until 1972, when the employees purchased the company, it was named the Chicago and North Western Railway.
The Heber Valley Railroad (HVRX) is a heritage railroad based in Heber City, Utah. It operates passenger excursion trains along a line between Heber City and Vivian Park, which is located in Provo Canyon. The HVRX carries over 110,000 passengers a year.
The Sacramento River Fox Train, formerly the Yolo Shortline Railroad Company, is a common carrier railroad company that runs special excursions within West Sacramento, California.
The establishment of America's transcontinental rail lines securely linked California to the rest of the country, and the far-reaching transportation systems that grew out of them during the century that followed contributed to the state's social, political, and economic development. When California was admitted as a state to the United States in 1850, and for nearly two decades thereafter, it was in many ways isolated, an outpost on the Pacific, until the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869.
Southern Pacific 4449, also known as the Daylight, is the only surviving example of Southern Pacific Railroad's "GS-4" class of 4-8-4 "Northern" type steam locomotives and one of only two GS-class locomotives surviving, the other being "GS-6" 4460 at the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri. GS is an abbreviation of "General Service" or "Golden State," a nickname for California.
The Western Railway Museum, in Solano County, California is located on Highway 12 between Rio Vista and Suisun. The museum is built along the former mainline of the Sacramento Northern Railway. Their collection focuses on trolleys, as it is primarily a museum of interurban transit equipment.
The Sacramento Northern Railway was a 183-mile (295 km) electric interurban railway that connected Chico in northern California with Oakland via the state capital, Sacramento. In its operation it ran directly on the streets of Oakland, Sacramento, Yuba City, Chico, and Woodland. This involved multiple car trains making sharp turns at street corners and obeying traffic signals. Once in open country, SN's passenger trains ran at fairly fast speeds. With its shorter route and lower fares, the SN provided strong competition to the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific Railroad for passenger business and freight business between those two cities. North of Sacramento, both passenger and freight business was less due to the small town agricultural nature of the region and due to competition from the paralleling Southern Pacific Railroad.
The Oregon, Pacific and Eastern Railway is an Oregon-based short line railroad that began near Eugene as the Oregon and Southeastern Railroad (O&SE) in 1904. O&SE's line ran 18 miles (29 km) along the Row River between the towns of Cottage Grove and Disston. The Oregon, Pacific & Eastern Railway Company incorporated in 1912, purchased the physical assets of the O&SE two years later, and shortened their total trackage to operate 16.6 miles (26.7 km) from an interchange yard with the Southern Pacific Railroad at Cottage Grove, east to a 528' x 156' turnaround loop at Culp Creek. The last of this track was closed and scrapped in 1994, and ownership of its abandoned right of way property was later reverted to the state of Oregon to become one of the first-ever Government/Private Sector cooperative partnership Rails to Trails programs in the US, forming the Row River National Recreation Trail. A successor corporation now operates a communications company and a narrow-gauge line at Wildlife Safari.
The Wisconsin and Calumet Railroad was a Class III shortline railroad that operated in the southern portion of Wisconsin and northern portion of Illinois from 1985 until 1997.
The Del Monte was a passenger train operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad between San Francisco and Monterey, California. It ran from 1889 to 1971.
Rail transportation is an important element of the transportation network in the U.S. state of Oregon. Rail transportation has existed in Oregon in some form since 1855, and the state was a pioneer in development of electric railway systems. While the automobile has displaced many uses of rail in the state, rail remains a key means of moving passengers and freight, both within the state and to points beyond its borders.
The Southern Pacific Red Electric Lines, also known simply as the Red Electric, was a network of interurban passenger train services operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad in the Willamette Valley of the U.S. state of Oregon from 1914 to 1929. The service got its name from the bright red color of its cars. Despite its short history, among West Coast interurbans it was unique, and it was considered the finest such system in the Pacific Northwest. It was the only major electric interurban railroad converted from steam to electric passenger use. It was also one of few systems using all-steel equipment, and one of the largest 1500-volt systems in the country.
The Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay Railroad (SCMB), or Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line (SCBRL), is a historic railway running through Santa Cruz County, California. It once ran operationally from Davenport to the Watsonville Junction where it connected to the Union Pacific Coast Line. Over the years it has had many splays and connections to other local railroads over, through, and around the Santa Cruz Mountains. It is still active today, including a connection with the Roaring Camp Railroads line that makes regular trips between Felton and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
Transportation in the Sacramento metropolitan area consists of a variety of modes of travel in El Dorado County, Placer County, Sacramento County, and Yolo County, which are the four counties that comprise the Sacramento metropolitan area.
The Monterey Branch Line is a railway line located in Monterey County, California. It runs 16 miles (26 km) between Castroville, where it connects to the Union Pacific Coast Line, and Monterey, formerly running as far as Pacific Grove. It is roughly paralleled by California State Route 1 and is active to Sand City as of 2020.
The Santa Paula Branch Line is a railway corridor in Ventura County, California. It connects Saugus and Santa Paula through the Santa Clara River Valley, though the route east of Piru is out of service. It opened for traffic by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1887. Since 1995 the line has been owned by the Ventura County Transportation Commission.