The Central Pacific Railroad was the first railroad to enter Nevada County as it constructed eastward in 1865. At the base of the eastern slope of Donner Pass, the railroad established a construction camp, now known as Truckee, before following the Truckee River to the Nevada state line. Truckee became home to expansive locomotive facilities for helper locomotives on trains westbound over Donner Pass after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. Through the end of the 19th century, additional railroads were constructed, bringing the outside world closer to the remote corners of the county. Railroads like the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad and Nevada County Traction Company served the gold rush-era boomtowns of Grass Valley and Nevada City. Lumber companies like the Towle Brothers and the Sierra Nevada Wood & Lumber Company brought rail into the forests and filled the demand for lumber throughout the region.
Heimburger House announces another new book offering, the Nevada County Narrow Gauge by Gerald M. Best, a 214-page hardbound history of this well-known narrow gauge line in California. With 284 photographs, maps, diagrams and rosters, Nevada County Narrow Gauge recounts the story of this short line railroad that served California’s northern mines, mostly quartz gold mines. The line opened for business on May 24, 1876 when the first regular train ran between the two end points. High trestles, tunnels, steep grades and sharp curves, picturesque stations and yards are what this shortline was all about. The railroad ran between Colfax, through Grass Valley and up to Nevada City, California, north and east of Sacramento. The railroad, besides carrying large quantities of lumber, farm produce and feeds, Bartlett pears and peaches, grapes, walnuts, apples and citrus fruits, carried gold shipments for the San Francisco Mint—and never was this part of the business marred by a holdup or even an attempted one, though the total amount of gold shipped was $250 million. With the war in Europe, and permits to mine gold cancelled, the NCNG became more valuable as scrap. The gross revenue for 1941 was down $50,000 in two years to $118,000, and a Federal order to shut the mines in October of 1942 was the final blow. On July 10, 1942, the railroad ran its last revenue train. Some of the equipment went to the White Pass & Yukon, while some went to Hawaii for use by the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor. The Nevada County Narrow Gauge was a pioneer, there being only four other common carrier railroads of 3-foot gauge completed in California before May of 1876. It had been built without subsidy and outlasted many of its contemporaries except the Carson & Colorado. Over its 66-year life span, the rail line gave employment to hundreds of people, and made it possible for the mines to operate without interruption, and earning $7.2 million in revenues along the way. It’s gone—but not forgotten! The book features a beautiful color painting of NCNG locomotive #5 on the dustjacket, painted by noted artist John Hugh Coker. The book was first printed many years ago.
The Nevada Northern Railway is the sole survivor from a grand era when railroads served mines throughout the state. Built in 1905-1906 to develop the incredible copper deposits of the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company in White Pine County, it was--and still is--a workaday railroad. Although its primary purpose was to haul ore, it eventually served the community with a daily passenger train between East Ely and Cobre until 1941. Over 4.5 million people rode the trains, and a mountain of copper ore was moved. In 1983, the Nevada Northern Railway ceased operating, and two years later the entire ore line, including the railroad's yard and shop facilities in East Ely, was donated to the White Pine Historical Railroad Foundation that now operates the railway as a museum. Instead of relics in glass cases or repainted old equipment on static display, the museum preserves a working steam railroad, delighting train enthusiasts year-round with passenger service and special seasonal excursions.
The Southern Pacific Railroad is California's railroad. As the Central Pacific, it bored and blasted its way east from Sacramento, across the towering High Sierra, meeting with the Union Pacific at Promontory, Utah, completing the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, and profoundly changing the growing United States. By the early 20th century, the Southern Pacific was a rail colossus, stretching from San Francisco Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. Yet the Southern Pacific remained essentially Californian. Its rail lines gave muscle to the lovely California coast, the fertile San Joaquin and Imperial Valleys, and the timber industry of the north coast. Yet for all its might and majesty, for many Californians the Southern Pacific was a smaller, more intimate part of the fabric of their daily lives.
This long-awaited study, the magnum opus of a leading railroad historian, describes the conception, construction, and early operation of the first narrow gauge railroads in northern California. It is lavishly illustrated by some 600 photographs and drawings, almost three-quarters of which have never before been published. The topic is approached through an unusual lens: the history of the relatively small but extraordinarily inventive contracting and engineering firm of the brothers Thomas and Martin Carter. The Carters were able to reduce the cost and complexity of light railroad construction to the point where local narrow gauge lines could initially compete with the state’s notorious railroad monopolies. Pioneering a mobile manufacturing operation that could supply locally funded short lines with rolling stock (which traditionally came from East Coast manufacturers), the Carter Brothers began with a line to serve Salinas Valley wheat farmers, desperate to achieve an independent means for conveying their crops to the wharf in Monterey. The narrow gauge railroad that resulted was an act of political and economic defiance, but ultimately a hopeless assault on the "Octopus"—the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads. Rallying around the example set in Monterey, a narrow gauge movement in California flourished in the mid-1870s, with the rapid launching of five more companies—the North Pacific Coast, the Santa Cruz Railroad, the Santa Cruz & Felton, the Nevada County Narrow Gauge, and the South Pacific Coast—all of which drew on the Carter Brothers for manufacturing and engineering. Soon, Thomas and Martin Carter were not only selling railroad supplies and engineering to all six short lines, but had won management positions with the strongest, the South Pacific Coast. Until personal and financial disaster overtook them in 1880, the Carters were at the forefront of not just a new business, but a new technology.
