At 8:15 AM, Elizabeth and I drove over to the Smith's house and picked up Greg and Marty Smith. With Elizabeth driving we headed south down Interstate 5 to Loomis Santa Fe Avenue and parked across the street.
Solana Beach Amtrak station built in 1994. We next headed to Del Mar to our second stop of the day.
The Santa Fe Del Mar station built in 1910. We then went south to National City.
The Santa Fe National City station built in 1887.
Elizabeth, Greg and Marty in front of the 1887 Santa Fe National City station.
Car 6891 from Vienna.
Puget Sound and International Railway Bellingham, Washington Birney Car 357 {former Old Spaghetti Factory streetcar 366}.
San Diego Trolley Car U2 Car 1002.
Museum view.
Car N1 Class 6891 from Vienna, Austria.
In 1936 San Diego Electric Railway ordered 25 single-end Presidents Conference Committee (PCC) cars from the St. Louis Car Company. This is Car 539.
Car N1 Class 6890 from Vienna, Austria.
Car N1 Class 6888 from Vienna, Austria.
San Diego Electric Railway Cable Car 54 built in 1903 from two 1889 cable cars. Next we went to Lemon Grove.
The Lemon Grove station is a replica station built in 1986, one block north from the former station which was torn down in the 1940's. We next went to the La Mesa station.
Mojave Northern 0-6-0ST 3 built by Davenport in 1923. It was later transferred to Southwest Portland Cement Company as their 3, then in 1966, donated to the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum Association in Perris before moving to La Mesa in 1981. The Mojave Northern Railroad was built in 1915-16 by the Southwestern Portland Cement Company, from its plant at Leon in northern Victorville, five-and-a-half miles to Sidewinder valley in the Mojave desert. It was extended five miles to Bell in 1947 and seven more to Reserve Quarry in 1951. 3 worked mainly in the Leon cement plant until steam operations were replaced by diesels in 1957.
Pacific Fruit Express refrigerated car 11207 built by the company in 1957.
Southern Pacific caboose 1058 built by the railway in 1941.
The San Diego, Cuyamaca & Eastern La Mesa station built in 1896. This display and the station is part of the Pacific Southwest Railroad Museum. Elizabeth then drove us to Campo on Highway 94.
Pacific Southwest Railroad Museum 10/24/2020Elizabeth went in the station to pick up our tickets for the 1:30 PM train while the rest of us used the restroom. I then showed Elizabeth around the museum grounds.
Santa Fe RS-2 2098 built by Alco in 1949 as Kennecott Copper 103. It hauled ore cars on the nineteen mile line between the company's open pit copper mine at Ruth, Nevada, and the smelter at McGill until 1983. It then worked briefly at the Bingham Canyon, Utah, open pit as 907. Kennecott donated 103 to the museum in 1984 and it was repainted as Santa Fe 2098 in 1988 for Railfair '88 at the Santa Fe's Wright Street yard in San Diego.
San Diego & Arizona wooden coaches.
San Diego & Arizona wooden coach 239.
San Diego & Arizona wooden coach 240.
Elizabeth's first time at the Pacific Southwest Railroad Museum.
Union Pacific H20-44 1366 built by Fairbanks Morse in 1947 as demonstrator 2000 and was then sold to the Union Pacific where it was renumbered 1366. It was bought by Southwest Portland Cement and renumbered 66 in 1962 and then 408 in 1969. SWPC donated the unit to the museum in 1985, where it has been restored to its original UP number and livery.
The builder's plate of this unique locomotive.
A special plate on the nose of this engine.
United States Army MRS-1 1820 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1920. It spent most of its life at Fort Eustis, Virginia before being moved to the storage yard at Hill Air Force Base near Clearfield, Utah, in 1971 for disposal and was bought by the PSRMA in 1982.
Simplot RS-32 4004, nee Southern Pacific 7304, built by Alco in 1962. It worked on the San Diego, Arizona and Eastern to work freight over the San Diego Trolley line to El Cajon. In 1981, it was sold to the J.R. Simplot Company, in Pocatello, Idaho, where it worked until 1989 and was then donated to the museum.
United States Army RSX-4 / MRS-1 2104 built by American Locomotive Company in 1953. USA 2104 was sent new to a storage facility at Marietta Air Force Station in Marietta, Pennsylvania as the Army no longer had a need for it. It was on a 1960 New Cumberland MRS-1 roster and was sent to Loring Air Force Base near Caribou, Maine in May 1975. In July 1977, it was sent to Hill AFB near Clearfield, Utah. In January 1979, it was put back in operating condition for transfer to the Air Force, renumbered USAF 2104, and painted Air Force blue with yellow trim, black underframe, and white letters. On January 26, 1979 it was sent to Vandenberg AFB near Lompoc, California to replace EMD MRS-1 USAF 1809 (now also museum-owned). USAF 2104 was operated by Chemical Systems Division of United Technologies, a civilian firm, and moved Titan missile part shipments two or three times a year from the Southern Pacific mainline near Surf, California. By 1986 USAF 2104 was no longer needed at Vandenberg, and was to be sent to Loring AFB but was declared surplus in 1987 then donated to the SDRM in March 1991.
San Diego & Arizona 80 ton switcher 7285 built by General Electric in 1943. First assigned to the New River Ordnance Plant in Radford, Virginia, and then the Volunteer Army Ammunition Depot in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1946, it transferred to the United States Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton, California, in 1965 and renumbered 248391. In January 1993, a flash flood covered the engine's traction motors and, although cleaned up, they were not repaired and 248391 was declared surplus. It was donated to the museum in 1993, repaired by PSRMA members at the San Diego & Imperial Valley Railroad shops in San Ysidro and arrived at Campo in 1995.
Santa Fe S-2 2381 built by American Locomotive Company in 1949. It was assigned to the Santa Fe's Western sections, including yards in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Bernardino, Barstow, Bakersfield, Fresno and Richmond. 2381 spent many years in San Diego, including working the transfer haul from the San Diego yard to National City. 2381 was retired in 1977 and placed in storage and was later donated to the California State Railroad Museum which, in turn, donated it the PSRMA.
Oregon Northwestern AS-616 1 built by Baldwin in 1953 as demonstrator 1601 and displayed at the 1953 Association of American Railroads convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. 1610 was the first of the second series AS-616 units, with roller bearings, different trucks and higher hoods that came within two inches of the cab roof. Re-lettered BLH 1601 after the convention, it was tested by railroads in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan then returned to Baldwin's Eddystone plant for storage in the autumn of 1953. Normally costing $145,000, it was sold a year later at a discount price of $90,000 to the fifty-one mile logging railroad, the Oregon & Northwestern in the Silvies River area. Renumbered 1, the unit started service on the Oregon & Northwestern in January 1955. After thirty years service, it was placed in storage when the ONW ceased operations in 1985 and was bought by the museum in 1990.
Our train for today's Pumpkin Express.
AGREX Inc DE-27b 45 ton swticher built by Whitcomb in 1945 for the United States Navy, this switcher was delivered to the Naval Ammunition Depot in Seal Beach, California. Its initial service number is unknown but, in 1949, it was assigned 65-00316 while still at Seal Beach. After eighteen years in Navy service, in 1963, 65-00316 was sold to a used locomotive dealer and stored at the former Pacific Electric Railway 8th Street yard in Los Angeles for four years. In early 1967, it was sold to Koppel Bulk Terminals, a grain bulk-loading firm in Long Beach. Koppel was later taken over by AGREX. After AGREX went out of business, the switcher was abandoned and then acquired by the Port of Long Beach. It was donated to the PSRMA by the Port in 1988.
San Diego & Arizona 25 ton switcher 1 built by Porter in 1948. It was sold to the National Supply Company in Torrance, California and numbered 1. When NSC became a division of ARMCO, it was renumbered 1528. By 1983, 1528 was surplus and was sold to Robert W. Babcock of Orange, California, who then leased it to the Mitchell Company, which had contracted to rebuild storm-damaged trackage in northern San Diego County on the Marine Corps Base at Camp Pendleton, California, and the Naval Weapons Station Annex at Fallbrook. Babcock renumbered the switcher 8157X, which was its builder's number. In 1985, he leased it to the PSRMA for $1.00 a year, where it was repainted as San Diego & Arizona Railway 8157, although it never actually worked on the SD&A. Babcock donated 8157 to the museum in December 1988.
California Western 2-6-6-2 46 built by Baldwin in 1937, and was the second to last logging mallet outshopped by the company. 46 was built with saddle tanks for Weyerhaeuser Lumber as 110 and operated out of Camp McDonald, Washington, in the Longview area. In 1954, 110 was bought by the logging company Rayonier, Incorporated. Renumbered 111, it worked on the ex-Polson Logging Grays Harbor County, Washington, lines and then as a standby on the New London-Railroad Camp-Crane Creek mainline until 1967. At some time, it was mated to a slope back tender from Polson Logging 18. In 1968, 111 was bought by the California Western for the Fort Bragg-Willits Super Skunk tourist trains. Its tanks and fuel bunker were removed and the current tender added. It worked until 1981 when steam on the CW ceased, and was then donated to the museum.
EJ Lavino & Company 0-6-0T 10 built by Alco Cooke in 1923 for the Lavino Furnace Company, later E.J. Lavino & Co. It spent its entire operational life switching at the company's ore processing plant in Sheridan, Pennsylvania, on the Reading Railway's Harrisburg-Reading mainline. During the 1960s, 10 was fondly remembered by railfans for exchanging whistles with steam locomotives hauling the Reading's "Iron Horse Rambles" through Sheridan. After a request by the museum, 10 was donated to the PSRMA in 1966 and was moved to rented tracks at the Orange Empire Trolley Museum, later the Orange Empire Railway Museum. In 1981 it went on display at La Mesa and then in 1983, was moved to Campo.
San Diego & Arizona Eastern 2-8-0 104 built by Baldwin in 1904 as 2720 and bought by the San Diego & Arizona in 1921 and renumbered #104. It was used on freight as well as passenger runs, and appeared in the 1923 promotional film, "Carriso Gorge", "The Magnificent" and in 1926, the MGM movie "Red Lights" with Marie Prevost and Jean Hersholt. 104 was requisitioned on long-term lease by the Southern Pacific in 1941, and returned to its original 2720 number. It then worked across the Southern Pacific system until 1948, when it returned to the SD&AE and was renumbered 104. Leased back to the Southern Pacific in 1950, it worked as 104 at the SP's Bayshore yards in Brisbane, California, until retired in 1954. In 1955, the SP donated 104 along with ex-SD&AE Carriso Gorge Business Car 50 to the Southern California Exposition/San Diego County Fair in Del Mar, California, where it went on display for the next twenty-seven years. In 1982, the fair operator donated it to the museum, and it arrived in Campo in August 1983.
Kaiser steel caboose 1905 built by the railroad in 1953 as Kaiser 1918.
Modesto & Empire Traction 70 ton switcher 613 built by General Electric in 1955 as Southern Pacific 5119. 5119 was finally retired from the SD&AE in October 1967, spending a brief 14-month stint switching passenger cars in Oakland during 1962-63, and eventually was sold back to G.E. at Oakland in 1968 and held for resale. When retired, the 5119 and its older sister, 5101, were the last 70-tonners on the SD&AE. In June 1975, 5119 was sold to Oregon's White City Terminal & Utility Co. Railway near Medford, used as a backup to an SW1200 switcher. In 2005, 5119 was sold to Central California's Modesto & Empire Traction Company, a five-mile long family-owned shortline at Modesto, where it joined 11 other 70-tonners until replaced by new 2,000 h.p. Railpower Technologies RP208D genset units in December 2008. M&ET repainted 5119 in its crisp red & white color scheme and renumbered it 613. After a lengthy two-year process, the switcher made it to Campo on July 14, 2011.
Coos Bay Lumber 2-8-2T 11 built by American Locomotive Company in 1929. The locomotive went new to Coos Bay Lumber Company of Powers, Oregon. It was used in timber operations and along a 45-mile Southern Pacific branch between Powers and Marshfield (now Coos Bay), via Myrtle Point and Coquille in southwest Oregon. It was retired from log-hauling in early 1951 and used mainly in yard operations. In July 1956, Coos Bay Lumber was purchased by the Georgia-Pacific Corporation, becoming its Coos Bay Timber Division. Diesels then replaced steam, and CBL No. 11 was used only in standby service. It pulled its last train at Myrtle Point's Centennial in July 1962.
In November 1967, CBL 11 was donated by Georgia-Pacific to the PSRMA. It left Powers June 17, 1968 on its own wheels, but when it derailed three days later and was declared "untrackworthy" by the Southern Pacific, it was loaded on a depressed-center flatcar and carried to San Diego, arriving August 3rd. It was unloaded at Santa Fe's Marine terminal by Owl Company cranes. Later moved to the Miramar Naval Air Station, it was repaired and repainted by museum volunteers, and named for John A. "Nick" Nichols, their spirited leader. In 1976 it became part of the Museum's Bicentennial exhibit at B Street and Harbor Drive, and in October 1976 was used with two Museum passenger cars in filming Universal Pictures' "MacArthur" with Gregory Peck at the Santa Fe Depot in San Diego. Moved to San Ysidro by the SD&AE, CBL 11 was brought to Campo in July/August 1983 on the museum's first "Great Freight". The engine was rehabilitated by Museum volunteer workers and steamed up for the first time in 22 years on Memorial Day 1984. It has since had more repairs, a 1985 repainting/relettering, and has been steamed up on other occasions. CBL 11 is now displayed in the Museum's yard, and is currently under restoration.
Southern Pacific GP-9 3873 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1959 as St. Louis-Southwestern 830. It was re-numbered SSW 3651 in 1965 then rebuilt in Sacramento and became GP9R 873. On April 22, 1994, it was in a derailment while enroute from San Jose to Oakland. It was donated to the museum in 1997, being acquired for use on the SDRM's SD&A demonstration railway, so has been painted in the 1950s SP "Black Widow" scheme, which it never wore.
Pullman sleeper/lounge/observation car "Commandant" built by Pullman in 1910. "Commandant" has ten open sections, each with upper and lower berth. By day each lower berth was converted into two facing seats, the forward-facing one assigned to the lower-berth occupant, who paid a higher Pullman fare. (Pullman passengers required both a first-class railroad ticket for travel and a Pullman ticket for Pullman sleeping-car space). The upper berths were swung closed during the day and folding section-divider panels (used at night) stored in them. Pullman porters made up the berths in the evening and closed them in the morning. "Commandant" has large restrooms and its wood interior has detailed pin-striping and painted ornamentation. It has an original upper-berth ladder, Pullman coathangers, and other accessories, a vestibule at the front end and a rear lounge with open observation platform and recessed circular light fixture.
It was owned and operated by the Pullman Sleeping Car Company and for years assigned to the Southern Railway. Retired in December 1944, "Commandant" was sold to 20th Century-Fox Films and kept at Fox's West Los Angeles lot until all its rail equipment was moved about 20 miles west to Malibu Canyon in the late 1950's. It may have been used for interior scenes in "Berlin Express" and "Some Like It Hot". It was rarely used in film-making and not modified or altered much. It was kept well-maintained and its interior is in good condition. It may have been painted gray and then dark green with black roof.
In January 1972, 20th Century-Fox sold all its railroad equipment to Short Line Enterprises for tourist railroad use. In August 1973, "Commandant" was sold for use in Railroader Restaurants, but was never modified or used for that purpose; instead being stored on a Union Pacific industrial siding in Mira Loma, just west of Riverside.
The "Commandant" was purchased by the PSRMA in early 1984 with funds donated for that purpose by museum members John and Marlene Ashman and the Reverend Art Dominy. They also provided the money needed to move it on the Union Pacific to Los Angeles. From there it was moved free by the Santa Fe to San Diego, and by the SD&AE to the Grossmont industrial siding in La Mesa, where it was cleaned up by museum volunteers. In February 1987, the "Commandant" was taken to San Ysidro by the SD&IV and to Campo on the museum's "Great Freight II".
United States Army 45 ton switcher 7485 built by General Electric in 1941. It was delivered to the Plum Brook Ordnance Plant near Sandusky, Ohio, in 1941 and went on to work at various United States Army and Air Force facilities in California and Utah. It then went into storage at Hill Air Force Base near Clearfield, Utah before being transferred to the United States Navy and donated to the museum in 1973. Still in Army black, it remained at Hill AFB four more years until taken in February 1977 by UP & Santa Fe to the Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego. It was repaired, painted black & silver, and lettered "Pacific Southwest Railway Museum", switched some Navy boxcars and powered the museum's first Miramar Chief trains in 1978. Leased to the MTDB from 1981-83 and equipped with special couplers, it moved San Diego Trolley LRVs before electrification.
When the museum's steam Shay, HLC 3, broke down July 30, 1983 pulling the museum's first "Great Freight", 7485 brought 18 pieces of museum equipment 41.8 miles from Garcia station (Tijuana), Baja California, Mexico to Campo in nine round-trips and a one-way run. Operating 794 mainline miles, half up an almost continuous 1.4% grade pulling up to 191 tons at about 6 mph, its stacks red-hot in the summer heat, 7485 performed flawlessly. It was the first rolling stock to enter the museum grounds on its own wheels and under its own power.
United States Navy 44 ton switcher 65-00608 built by General Electric in 1942. It was sent to the Iowa Ordnance Plant at Dayman, Iowa, as 10-44. After the end of World War II, it moved to various facilities before two cracked cylinder heads rendered it inactive in 1985. Declared surplus, USN 65-00608 was donated to the PSRMA in 1989.
United States Army GP9 1401 is really Southern Pacific GP9 5873 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1959. It was among the last GP9s built by EMD for an American customer, and the only order of low nose GP9s built for a major railroad. It was re-numbered 3709 in 1965. In February 1987 it was sold to the United States Army Transportation School as their 002. Later it became Department of Transportation 1401 and then the United States Marine Corps 296619. At one time the lettering on the side said U.S. Army, but the Army portion has since been painted out – most likely because this unit has been assigned to the USMC's Camp Pendleton.
United States Air Force MRS-1 1809 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1952 as USAF B-1809 and sent to Marietta Air Force Station in Marietta, Pennsylvania. It then moved about from Alaska to Utah and California on different assignments before being sent in 1979 to the National Transportation Group, Rail Service Division storage yard at Hill Air Force Base near Clearfield, Utah, for disposal. In early 1982, 1809 was donated to the PSRMA after being released surplus. It has been restored to the "black widow" scheme of the first SP diesels used on the SD&AE in the 1950s.
Pullman "Robert Peary" built by Pullman in 1927, one of six cars in the Explorer series. The car was operated by the Pullman Company for private-party use, and was hired with three stewards for a daily charge (in 1939 it was $105), plus railroad charges for moving and parking. President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the car 34 times in 1934, 1935 and 1936. Others reportedly using the Robert Peary in the 1930s included opera star Lily Pons and screen stars Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. In June 1944 this car was sold to the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, renamed "Blackhawk" for an 1830s Native American Sauk chief, and assigned to the Burlington Board Chairman, Ralph Budd, until his retirement in 1949. "Blackhawk" continued as a business car with the CBQ, which modified it in 1951 and it operated until the mid 1960's when it was retired.
In September 1966 the car was purchased PSRMA Life Charter member Jack Stodelle on behalf of San Diegans John Cuchna, Charles Pratt and Steve Sourapas, who had its exterior painted dark blue and the interior decorated in Victorian style, with cream and gold paint, red velour drapes, mirror tiles and four 1920s Louis Icart lithographs, at a cost of $60,000. The car was named "Victoria" after Pratt’s wife. It was used as a party car around the United States and Mexico, and in 1973 was used in filming "Executive Action" with Burt Lancaster & Robert Ryan. In October 1974 Cuchna and Sourapas (who had bought out Pratt) donated the car to the PSRMA. "Victoria" was used on PSRMA Amtrak excursions and from 1976 to 1984, was the centerpiece of its Bicentennial exhibit on Harbor Drive at B Street in San Diego. In October 1976, "Victoria" was used in filming "MacArthur" with Gregory Peck & Dan O'Herlihy, and in 1980 was painted Pullman green and renamed "Robert Peary". In 1984 it was moved to the La Mesa depot for display. It went to Campo on "Great Freight II" on February 28, 1987. It is now on display, used on museum specials, and is available for charter on many of the museum’s trains.
Santa Fe Railway Post Office Car 74 built by Pullman in 1927. It was often assigned to the Kansas City to Albuquerque run. Its final runs may have been on the Clovis-Lubbock-Temple-Houston run on Santa Fe's Panhandle & Santa Fe and Gulf Coast & Santa Fe subsidiaries, as its pigeonhole box headers were set for cities on that route. The car was retired in 1968 as the United States Post Office transferred its mail contracts to airplanes and trucks (the last RPO run was June 30, 1977). ATSF 74 was sold to Intercontinental Steel for scrap on April 9, 1971, then bought for use as a gift shop selling railroad paraphernalia in Houston, Texas.
The SDRM purchased it in December 1989 and it arrived the next year. After a full restoration, the car took its inaugural run to Tecate, Mexico on November 23, 2002. It won the Tourist Railway Association's 2002 national award for best passenger car restoration of the year. It is run on occasional special museum trains to demonstrate picking up mail "on the fly".
Southern Pacific 4-6-0 2353 built by Baldwin in 1912. It started work on San Joaquin/Fresno-Los Angeles Express trains then was leased in 1927 to the San Diego & Arizona, which became the SP-owned San Diego & Arizona Eastern in 1932. It hauled passenger trains on the San Diego-Campo-El Centro mainline, as well as racetrack specials from San Diego to Agua Caliente in Tijuana, Mexico. After returning to the Southern Pacific in 1939, the locomotive moved to the San Francisco area to work in freight service. It then served as a switcher at the Bayshore Yards in Brisbane, California in the 1950s, as well as hauling San Mateo-Watsonville, California, gravel trains and switching at a San Mateo lumber mill.
2353 retired in January 1957 and the following month, was moved using compressed air into the California Mid-Winter Fairgrounds in Imperial, California where it remained on static display for the next twenty-nine years. In 1984 the fair operator donated the locomotive to the museum. After a ten-year restoration effort, 2353 steamed again on the old SD&A, running until 2000 when close examination revealed the cost of repairs required to keep it in operation was too prohibitive. It has been in storage in the display shed ever since.
San Diego and Arizona Eastern business car 50 "Carriso Gorge", ex. Southern Pacific 135, exx. Southern Pacific 101 "Tucson", exxx. San Diego and Arizona 50 "Carriso Gorge", nee Southern Pacific buffet/smoker/observation car 1733 built by Pullman in 1910.
On December 18, 1919 the SD&A agreed to purchase SP 1733, then in the Sacramento area. It was delivered to the shops of the SP-controlled Pacific Electric Railway in Torrance on December 23, 1920 and converted into a business car for SD&A president John D. Spreckels, with purchase date of January 1922. The interior was rebuilt with a solarium lounge; office; two bedrooms with sink, toilet and connecting tub bath; dining room; stall shower; galley; pantry and steward's quarters with berth and toilet.
In 1923 the car was used to film "Carriso Gorge, the Magnificent" which new SD&A president Armand T. Mercier (Spreckels retired in 1923) showed in its lounge with other films on a publicity trip to New Orleans and other cities. He also used it on a 1928 Seattle trip. In February 1933 the SP acquired the SD&A, renamed it San Diego & Arizona Eastern and relettered the car SDAE 050 "Carriso Gorge". Little used, it was placed on sale by SD&AE president F.L. Annable in 1937 but never sold. It was leased to the Southern Pacific on August 7, 1940 and renumbered SP 101 "Tucson".
On April 13, 1945, it was converted into a medical examination car and re-numbered Southern Pacific 135. Its furnishings and some walls were removed, medical facilities installed, the interior painted Hospital green, and exterior Pullman green. Operated as far east as El Paso, in 1951 its ownership was transferred to the Southern Pacific and it was assigned to Dr. Sydney Talbot.
In 1955 SP donated the car (repainted gray) and SDAE locomotive 104 to the San Diego County Fair. Members of the Railway Historical Society of San Diego raised $1,600 to place them in the Del Mar fairgrounds after their arrival September 2, 1955. The exhibit was opened June 24, 1956, and the re-lettered SDA 050 "Carriso Gorge" staffed at fair time for 25 years by the RHS, which became defunct in the 1980's. In February 1982, the 22nd District Agricultural Board (the fair operator) donated the exhibit to the PSRMA due to its deteriorated condition, caused by sun, wind, ocean air, rain and lack of maintenance.
The equipment was moved to Solana Beach on February 15, 1983, taken to San Ysidro free by Santa Fe and SD&AE and brought to Campo in August on our first "Great Freight". Now in the carbarn, "Carriso Gorge" has been cleaned and repaired, had many walls carefully stripped of paint to expose the inlaid woodwork, and an exhibit installed in its solarium. Because of the tremendous amount of time, effort and money required a major fund-raising campaign is being organized to restore this major San Diego historical artifact to its 1922 operating appearance.
Rockdale, Sandow and Southern open platform segregated combined passenger-baggage car 3 built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1886 as 3736. In May 1916, by which time the Class 1 railroads were forced by federal law to retire wood passenger cars, it was sold by car broker E. H. Wilson & Company, and sent from Birmingham, Alabama to the Dardanelle & Russellville Railroad, a five-mile Arkansas shortline opened in 1883 and still in business. Numbered D&R 10, it had a "Jim Crow" racial segregation divider installed roughly in the middle of the car to comply with Arkansas railroad segregation law, with eight windows per side in the "white" section and seven in the "colored" section.
D&R 10 was retired on October 31, 1936 and sold to the six-mile Rockdale, Sandow & Southern Railroad in Texas, which like the D&R, was then owned by the McAlester Fuel Company of McAlester, Oklahoma. The 1936 sale price was $125 plus $625 to rebuild it into a combination passenger and baggage (combine) at the D&R's North Dardanelle shops. A baggage room/coach wall replaced the racial divider, and a new segregation wall was added, creating an eight-seat "colored" section next to the baggage room and 22-seat "white" section. Sliding baggage room doors were installed and five baggage room windows on each side were paneled over. Numbered RS&S 3, it was sent to Marjorie in November 1936. Texas laws required that all railroads offer passenger service at least once daily, except Sunday, with every train segregating the races.
In February 1945, RSS 3 (with its lettering removed) was sold to 20th Century-Fox and sent from Rockdale, Texas to the West Los Angeles (Century City) studio, arriving July 24th with D&R 14. It was mis-identified as D&R 13, a number D&R never had. Appropriately relettered "Pennsylvania Railroad" for its first role, it was used from 1946-72 in many films, including "Centennial Summer", "The Raid", "Love Me Tender", "The True Story of Jesse James", "The Second Time Around", "Walls of Jericho", "Powderkeg" and the Nichols and Bearcats television series. At some point Fox removed the ceiling lamps and other fixtures. It was moved to a Malibu canyon ranch in the late 1950s and sold to Short Line Enterprises for tourist railway use in 1972.
RS&S 3 (listed as D&R 13) and D&R 14 were traded in April 1976 to the PSRMA, trucked to Poway, California and displayed for seven years at Old Poway Village, where roof and other repairs were made. Trucked to Campo in 1983, they were the first museum passenger cars there. It was finally identified as RS&S 3 in 1988.
The car has being restored to its 1936-1945 Jim Crow years, when it operated as the Rockdale, Sandow & Southern's sole passenger car. Interior restoration, including reupholstered seats and replica ceiling oil lamps, was finished in 2009. A $3,000 grant from the National Railway Historical Society, awarded in 2008, helped pay for recovering the seats and casting 90 replica pieces of clerestory glass. The car is on view in the Display Building, accompanied by the Museum's African American railroad heritage display, the most comprehensive photographic exhibit about black railroaders in the country.
Santa Fe wooden caboose 1413 built by American Car and Foundry in 1923. It was used for about forty years on various Santa Fe lines. Santa Fe replaced its mainline wood cabooses with safer steel ones in the 1930s, but they remained in local and branchline use. It was later retired and used as sleeping quarters for railroad employees in a car repair shed at Riverbank, California. ATSF 1413 was sold to the California Railroad & Salvage Company in Tustin, California for scrapping in the 1970s, in very deteriorated condition. It has since been restored.
Elizabeth enjoying the museum here at Campo.
Our train waiting to back down to the station to pick us up.
Museum scene.
San Diego, Arizona and Eastern Campo depot built in 1918.
San Diego and Arizona wooden boxcar 2041 built in the 1900's. Little is known about this old boxcar. It probably pre-dates the San Diego & Arizona Railway, incorporated in 1906. It may possibly have been acquired from the San Diego & Southeastern Railway when that line was sold to the SD&A in October 1917. (The SD&SE was formed in March 1912 from other railways whose predecessors dated back to 1886 and 1887). When its career as a boxcar ended, SDA 2041 was retired, lifted off its trucks and placed on the ground about 1916 (when the SD&A arrived in Campo and began San Diego-Campo service) or shortly after. The car was owned by the SD&A until 1933 and then by Southern Pacific's subsidiary San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railway. The boxcar is still the property of the SD&AE, which was sold by SP to the San Diego County Metropolitan Transit Development Board in November 1979. The boxcar has been in use by the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum Association as a small theater for their passengers waiting for excursion trains.
Elizabeth bought a T-shirt before it was time to board the train. We talked with the train crew before they loaded the groups and we sat socially-distanced with Elizabeth and I sitting across the aisle from Greg and Marty. Now the views from the trip.
Our tickets for this trip.
A trip aboard the Pumpkin Express.
The train crossed the Pacific Crest Trail on the way back, a 2,653 mile trail that starts at the Mexican border and goes north to the Canadian border. The train returned us to Campo and while the families went to the Pumpkin Patch, we still had one more stop to make at Campo.
This was taken from a happier time on the orginal Descanso, Alpine & Pacific Railway. Roy Athey operated this unique railroad until he became eighty-six years old in January 2018 and donated the whole railroad to the Pacific Southwest Railroad Museum.
My views were saddened when Elizabeth told me his story of donation.
The 2.5 ton Brookville Locomotive that Roy used to run his trains.
This engine called Little Trammer was manufactured some time prior to 1930 by the Mancha Storage Battery Locomotive Company, St Louis.
Roy's homemade caboose.
Another of Roy's sheds.
The outhouse.
One last view of this great little former railroad. I still had one more thing to show our gang. It had been an excellent trip to the Pacific Southwest Railroad Museum.
On our way home!I drove our group east on CA Highway 94.
The San Diego & Arizona Eastern Upper Campo Creek viaduct built in 1916. Our next stop was going to be in Jacumba but we had to stop beforehand.
The view looking into Mexico with the border wall plus the San Diego Eastern Railroad. We then went into Jacumba.
The Jacumba San Diego & Eastern Railroad station built in 1919.
Former Santa Fe chair-observation car 3245 which became Santa Fe coach 2960, currently Amtrak 4462, built by Budd in 1941.
Old San Diego and Arizona Eastern wooden passenger car bodies.
A Union Pacific caboose.
Carrizo Gorge GP40M-2 669, nee Penn Central 3108 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1968.
Carrizo Gorge F7A 100 and 102, F7B 101 ex Washington Central and S-4 1465, originally Southern Pacific.
Jacumba scene. From here, I drove CA Highway 94 to Interstate 8 to an exit that led us to Plaster City.
Here we found one of the engines of US Gypsum, DL535E 111. They are the last industrial narrow gauge railroad in the United States. We then drove to El Centro and discovered that the Southern Pacific station had been removed so went continued on to Pioneers Village opposite Imperial Valley College.
A track speeder.
Southern Pacific caboose 1237 built by American Car and Foundry in 1947.
Imperial Irrigation District 0-4-0ST-T 151 built in 1918 by Alco Cooke for stock That year, it was sold to the Imperial Irrigation District where, as 151, it worked at Andrade, California, a small town close to the Colorado River near the border with Mexico. The Imperial Irrigation District was formed in 1911 under the California Irrigation District Act to acquire the properties of the bankrupt California Development Company and its Mexican subsidiary. It was formed as a public agency, acquiring thirteen mutual water companies in the valley, which had developed and operated water distribution canals. Now, it is the largest irrigation district in the United States, with more than 3,000 miles of canals and drains delivering water to farmland and local municipalities. It is also the sixth largest public power utility in the state of California, providing generation, transmission and distribution services to more than 145,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers. The steam engine was donated to the California Mid-Winter Fairgrounds Pioneer Society in 1953.
Southern Pacific Foreman's section house from Estelle, California.
Southern Pacific sugar beet hopper 51700 built in the 1940's. I drove us all the way to Denny's in Indio where we had a good meal before Elizabeth drove us the rest of the way home. It had been a very good trip and we saw plenty of interesting railroading.
| RETURN TO THE MAIN PAGE |