After departing Truckee on the California Zephyr, we climb up the East side of Donner Pass and through the "Big Hole", the tunnel that replaced the older route over the Summit and through all the famous snow sheds. Emerging on the West Coast, but still a long way up and the trip down to Colfax is an amazing ride, and eventually ending up in California's capitol, Sacramento.
Home of the Central Pacific railroad, and the starting point for the west coast assault on the Sierra's
and the the Trans-continental railroad. Old Town is on the river and still has many original buildings that were there back in the 1860's. It's also home to the famous California State Railroad museum, a must see of course! The museum is world class and has a fantastic display of the history of the trans continental story, and is home to the only surviving Southern Pacific "Cab Forward" steam locomotive. Designed by the "SP", the cab forward was the answer to train crews being asphyxiated while in the long tunnels and snow sheds on Donner Pass by smoke in the cab, and placed them at the front of the boiler and smoke stack,and was a huge success and they were used throughout the SP system right up to the end of steam traction.
I was also shown around the local rail fanning hotspots by Matt, a local and fellow model railroader .
Now while I have had many very generous people give up their time to show me their town and railroad sites, Matt made a huge effort due to not being all that well at the moment, so a big thanks to you sir and get well soon!
After two big train days in Sacramento , it was on the train again to Bakersfield, where I was picked up buy yet another you-tuber, Bob, and taken through to the famous rail fanning town of Tehachapi, but thats in the next blog!
Hooroo for now.
Cheers Gregg.
