Sacramento, CA Part II: California Railroad Museum

In addition to being near the place where gold was discovered, Sacramento was also the starting point for the western end of the first transcontinental railroad. It is fitting that Sacramento is also the home of the California State Railroad Museum. The State Railroad Museum is a tribute to the "iron horse" and its role in connecting California to the rest of the nation. It was a "must see" recommended by a couple of Sacramento residents we met at the Stockyards in Fort Worth. Like Sutter's Fort that we wrote about in our last post, the railroad museum is run by the California State Park System.

The museum is extremely well done. There are 21 faithfully restored locomotives and rail cars on display. There are also exhibits of photos and artifacts relating to railroad history. Throughout the museum, there are many VERY WELL DONE life-like figures that help bring the stories to life. One example is the scene shown below where railroad workers are shown repairing track.

A major part of the museum is appropriately devoted to the building of the first transcontinental railroad. Theodore Judah was the chief construction engineer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad that ran 22 miles from Sacramento to Folsom. Upon completion of the line in 1855, Judah began making surveys of the mountains looking for a practical route for a railroad to connect California to the east. Having decided on a route through the infamous Donner Pass, Judah was unable to find backing in San Francisco to build the railroad, so he turned to Sacramento.

Judah contacted a group of four investors, who later became known as the Big Four, and they formed the Central Pacific Railroad in 1861. Central Pacific surveyors carefully plotted the path for the railroad. Expensive tunnels, grading, cuts, and fills were required for the route. In the photo below, Chinese laborers are depicted transporting blasting supplies. Many of the laborers for the Central Pacific were Chinese.

The next photo shows the first locomotive of the Central Pacific Railroad. It was built in 1862 in Philadelphia and had to be transported by ship around the tip of South America. The locomotive is a 4-4-0 type, meaning it has four leading wheels, four drive wheels, and no trailing wheels.

With the Civil War going on, many in California were beginning to express sympathies with the South, and there were rumblings of a secession movement. Therefore, there was an urgent need to for Washington, D. C. to establish a link with California. In 1862, Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Act to aid in building the transcontinental railroad. The act provided funds to the railroads for each mile of track laid, plus generous grants of public lands. The railroads sold unused land at a handsome profit.

Back in the 1860s, there were several track widths in use in the country. When rail cars came to the end of one rail line, freight had to be transferred to different cars. The Pacific Railroad Act specified a gauge of 56 1/2 inches, effectively establishing a standard track width going forward for the whole country.

While the Central Pacific Railroad was laying track from Sacramento eastward, the Union Pacific Railroad was laying track westward from their starting point in Council Bluffs, IA. Although the Union Pacific started later, they ended up laying more track than the Central Pacific because of the more difficult route the Central Pacific had through the mountains. The two railroads finally met at Promontory, UT. The transcontinental railroad was opened on May 10, 1869 with the driving of the last spike.

In addition to an emphasis on the transcontinental railroad, the museum has many other historic locomotives and rail cars. The photo below shows Margery with a Nevada Central Railway 1880s narrow gauge coach.

And the next photo shows the interior of the car. Again, life-like figures help bring the scene to life.

The monster in the next photo is Locomotive No. 4294 built in 1944 for the Southern Pacific Railroad. It is an oil-fired, type 4-8-8-2 (four leading wheels, two sets of eight drive wheels, and 2 following wheels. It weighs over 1 million pounds. One of the unique features about this locomotive is it has a cab-forward design.

One of the newest locomotives on display was this Western Pacific Railroad F-7 diesel. General Motors built about 7,500 of these F-series locomotives between 1939 and 1960. When Paul was into HO-scale model railroading in the early 1960s, the F-7 was a very popular locomotive. 

Speaking of model railroading, the museum also has an excellent collection of Lionel toy trains. A few examples of the many toy trains on display are shown in the photo below.

There was also a model train layout complete with buildings, autos, lights, and even an airplane in the sky (top center just above the mountain in the background).

The California Railroad Museum is located at the eastern end of Old Sacramento, which is a collection of 53 historic buildings covering about 28 acres along the Sacramento River. This area used to be the heart of downtown Sacramento until the business district moved eastward where is is located today. The area of Old Sacramento became a rundown, neglected, high-crime area. In the 1960s, plans were set into place to redevelop the area, and many of the historic buildings were saved and restored.

We took the long way back to the car and walked around the block. The buildings now house lots of shops selling everything from toys to fine jewelry. There are also a few bars and numerous restaurants, like the Mexican restaurant on the second floor of the building in the photo below.

The next two photos show more of the buildings in Old Sacramento.

 

There was also a statue commemorating the Pony Express.

The pony Express was an express mail service that ran from St. Joseph, MO, to Sacramento. By using the Pony Express, the total time for mail to travel from coast to coast could be reduced to 10 days. The service only operated from April, 1860 to October, 1861, but it proved transcontinental travel was possible year-round. Pony Express announced its closure two days after the first transcontinental telegraph line was completed connecting Omaha and Sacramento.

After the museum and our stroll through Old Sacramento, we needed to hit a Walmart. There aren't all that many Walmarts in California, and VERY few of them are Super Walmarts. In other states, it seems like 80 to 90% of all Walmarts are Super Walmarts. In California, it's the other way around. There aren't that many Walmarts to begin with, and only about 10 to 20% are Super Walmarts. Sacramento is one of those rare locations that has a Super Walmart, so we stopped on our way back to the motor home to stock up on supplies.

From Sacramento, we backtracked a little and headed southwest to Napa, CA. We'll have more info about Napa in our next post.