OAUSA Net - March 18, 2021 - Ghost Rail Roads of the West

[DaveK]

Ghost Rail Roads of the South West

It's time to dust off the 4WD and start planning your next trip to explore our great American South West. Our history is rich, and there are almost an unlimited number of places to visit, but we suggest that exploring the past, through some of our "Ghost Rail Roads" can be an excellent start. This week we will be discussing several of the more well known Rail Roads of the West, and some of the more unknown Rail Roads, all of which offer a great insight into our past as well as a great opportunity to explore.

If you have a story of your visits to these Ghost Rail Roads, be sure to let us know, (with pictures, where available.)

[Jeff-OAUSA]

Product Spotlight

Books are perfect to bring along on outdoor adventures. They are compact, nearly indestructible, entertaining, and in a pinch the pages can help "To Build a Fire" or to take care of more private personal tasks! We are fortunate that we now have many options for books, from hardbacks, to paperbacks, to digital books, and to audio books.

• Paperback books, and to a limited extent hardback books, are great for reading at camp and their batteries never run down.

• Digital books allow one to bring multiple books in a compact format.

• Audio books are great for the drive to and from the destination.

Here are a few highly recommended books for reading outdoors:

The Wild Muir

This book is a collection of short stories written by John Muir himself, and then compiled by Lee Stetson and illustrated by Fiona King. Few authors can match John Muir's ability to capture the beauty, and potential danger, of life in the outdoors. In reading this book, I particularly enjoyed John Muir's first hand accounts of getting discombobulated on an Alaskan Ice Field, climbing a tall tree in Yosemite Valley during a wind storm, and surviving a trip to behind Yosemite's Bridal Vail Falls and getting soaked in the middle of winter.

Available Here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/238 ... _Wild_Muir

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The Best Short Stories of Jack London

Similar to The Wild Muir, The Best Short Stories of Jack London is a compilation of just of few of Jack London's most well known works. Many know Jack London for his novels The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Batard, yet his short stories as some of the best reading available for consumption in the outdoors.

My personal favorite for outdoor reading is To Build a Fire, a great, it not eery outdoor tail. To Build a Fire is about an outdoorsman who ventures out into the forest of the Yukon Territory during subzero winter conditions. He is followed by a native dog and is en route to visit his friends and ignoring warnings from an older man from Sulphur Creek about the dangers of hiking alone in extreme cold. The outdoorsman underestimates the harsh winter conditions and slowly freezes to death. The story will send a shiver up your spine even during warm summer weather.

Available Here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/236 ... ack_London

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The Second Amendment Manifesto

This book is a must-read for any outdoor enthusiast that loves the USA and wants to be prepared to help ensure that the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are preserved and remain true to the intent of the Founders. Author John Paine takes the reader back to ancient Greece and to early England and documents the history of individuals' rights to keep and bear arms and the efforts of various monarchs, dictators, kings, and parliaments to deprive individuals individually and collectively to maintain the tools needed to protect themselves and their property. Paine weaves in the experiences of the Founders and why they wrote the Second Amendment exactly the way they did. Paine sums it up with the Founders being quite focused on American's have the right to Keep and Bear Arms and to form Militias for the purposes of preserving their life, liberty, and ability to pursue happiness. Lastly, Paine document why the types of arms intended for protection by the Second Amendment goes well beyond the arms typically used for hunting.

Available Here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/264942059247?c ... 1&mkcid=28

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Amazon has decided to become a censor and has begun to digitally ban and digitally burn books. Please consider buying your books from retailers that understand the dangers of censorship. Thank you.

[toms]

Carson & Colorado Rail Road ( C&C)

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• William Sharon, Hume Yerington VP & G. Superintendent, Darius Mills – controlled V&T
• The Carson and Colorado Railway was a U.S. narrow gauge railroad that ran from Mound House, Nevada, to Keeler, California below the Cerro Gordo Mines.
• It was incorporated on May 10, 1880 as the Carson and Colorado Railroad, and construction on the railroad began on May 31, 1880. A track gauge of 3 ft (914 mm) was chosen to reduce cost.
• Much of the route parallels U.S. Route 95 Alternate, U.S. Route 95, Nevada State Route 360 or U.S. Route 6
• The Carson & Colorado began operations with a single Baldwin 4-4-0, the Candelaria.
• The first train arrived at Keeler on August 1, 1883.
• The 300-mile route reached an altitude of 7100 feet in Montgomery Pass.[1]
• The railroad served an arid area heavily dependent on mineral resources for economic activity.
• The line was reorganized as the Carson and Colorado Railway in 1892 to reduce accumulated debt.[2]
• The Virginia and Truckee Railroad, the parent company of the C&C, sold the line to the Southern Pacific Company in 1900.
• Silver and gold discoveries at Tonopah, Nevada and Goldfield, Nevada provided a major boost of revenues shortly after the Southern Pacific purchase.[2]
• The northern 140 miles from Mound House to Mina, Nevada was standard-gauged in 1905; and the C&C was merged into the Southern Pacific's narrow-gauge subsidiary, the Nevada and California Railroad.[3]
• The Nevada and California Railroad was reorganized into the Central Pacific Railroad in 1912.[3] Portions of the line were abandoned in the 1930s and the 1940s, and the last narrow gauge common carrier made its final run on April 29, 1960.[4] The rails were removed in January, 1961. The former parent company, the V&T, is currently being reconstructed.
• Mound House grew in importance with the Comstock silver strike and the famed Virginia and Truckee Railroad passed through the community. It grew in population during the mining boom with a railroad station (1871) and post office (1877) as the center of the community. Upon construction of the Carson & Colorado (narrow gauge) Railroad in 1880, Mound House became and important multi-gauge transfer depot for both freight and passengers.




Carson & Colorado Stations
• Mound House, Nevada (V&T Railroad to Carson City and Virginia City)
• Dayton, Nevada
• Fort Churchill, Nevada
• Wabuska, Nevada (Copper Belt Railway to Yerington)
• Lux, Nevada
• Moquist, Nevada
• Rio Vista, Nevada
• Schurz, Nevada
• Stuckey, Nevada
• Gillis, Nevada
• Rand, Nevada
• Magnus, Nevada
• Walker, Nevada
• Thorne, Nevada
• Hawthorne, Nevada (branch to Cottonwood)
• Cottonwood, Nevada (branch only)
• Kinkead, Nevada
• Luning, Nevada
• Mina, Nevada
• Sodaville, Nevada
• Rhodes, Nevada
• Tonopah Junction, Nevada (Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad)
• Belleville, Nevada
• Filben, Nevada (spur to Candelaria)
• Candelaria, Nevada (spur only)
• Basalt, Nevada
• Summit, Nevada
• Queen, Nevada
• Benton, California
• Hammill, California
• Laws, California
• Zurich, California
• Monola, California (formerly Alvord)
• Aberdeen, California (formerly Tibbets)
• Kearsarge, California
• Manzanar, California
• Owenyo, California (Southern Pacific Railroad to Lone Pine, Ridgecrest, and Los Angeles)
• Alico, California
• Dolomite, California
• Mock, California
• Keeler, California[5][6]




Desert Magazine December 1948
Last Passenger Trip . . .
BISHOP—What may have been the final passenger trip in the history of the Carson and Colorado narrow gauge railroad was
taken by 100 members of the Pacific Coast chapter of the Railway and Locomotive historical society in October.

The trip over the remaining 72 miles of trackage, from Law to Keeler, was made on flatcars on which benches were provided.
Gilbert Kneiss, president of the society and author of Bonanza Railroads, told the story of the railroad from its construction in 1880 through the Tonopah and Goldfield mining rushes, and the final abandonment of most of the line.—Inyo Register.

Nevada's Longest line . . .
Desert:
Peggy Trego's December travel column, "Montgomery Pass," contains the following statement:
"Happily, the highway follows the narrow-gauge remnant of what was once Nevada's longest railroad—the Carson and Colorado—the line of the Slim Princess."
The Carson and Colorado between Mound House, Nevada, and Keeler, California, was 293 miles in length, of which 107 miles
were in California, leaving 186 in Nevada. This from timetable No. 15, effective Monday, October 15, 1883.

The records show that the Union Pacific has 288 miles of track across Nevada, the Western Pacific 428 miles, and the Southern Pacific 443 miles. Of course, the Union and Western Pacific lines are "Johnnie- Come-Latelies," having been constructed long after Carson and Colorado was built, but the Central Pacific, now a part of the Southern Pacific system, was in existence considerably before the Carson and Colorado was constructed.

From the above you can see why I question that the Carson and Colorado was once Nevada's longest railroad.
ARTHUR C. DAVIS
Reseda, California

(Of all the railroads planned, financed and built within Nevada—with that state as "home port"—the C&C was the longest. The transcontinental lines were never regarded as "Nevada's." They still aren't. Ask any Nevadan. Mrs. Trego considers 294 track miles (a figure that does not include the Filben to Candelaria spur) as the rightful claim of the C&C's total length. "Some highly interesting arguments," she writes, "can be set forth as to track mileage of various roads entirely within the state. Sen. William Clark's Las Vegas-Tonopah line had approximately 207 miles of rail." Borax Smith's Tonopah & Tidewater RR, running up from California's Mojave Desert into southern Nevada, might possibly be considered by some as being "Nevada's longest line."—Ed.)

[toms]

Narrow Gauge Cheaper
• Narrow gauge railways usually cost less to build because they are
o usually lighter in construction,
o using smaller cars and locomotives (smaller loading gauge)
o as well as smaller bridges, smaller tunnels (smaller structure gauge)
o and tighter curves.
• Narrow gauge is thus often used in mountainous terrain, where the savings in civil engineering work can be substantial.
• It is also used in sparsely populated areas where the potential demand is too low for broader gauge railways to be economically viable.
 
The US standard railroad gauge is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used?
Because that’s the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads.

Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.

Why did “they” use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

Thus we have the answer to original question.
The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for! an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever
So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it that way and wonder what horse’s ass came up with that, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

[toms]

Nevada State Railroad Museum
1. 2180 South Carson Street, Carson City, Nevada 89701
2. Phone: 775-687-6953
3. Open Friday - Monday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
4. Admission is $6 for adults, Museum members and children under 18 are free.
5. The Nevada State Railroad Museum preserves the railroad heritage of Nevada
a. , including locomotives and cars of the famous Virginia & Truckee Railroad and C&C
b. 65 locomotives and cars in the collection, 40 were built before 1900, and 31 pieces that operated on the V & T Railroad.


LAWS
• Laws (formerly, Station and Bishop Depot) is an unincorporated community in Inyo County, California.

• The town is bordered by the White Mountains to the east and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the "Eastern Sierras," to the west. It is located near the Owens River in upper Owens Valley.
• History
• The settlement of Station was formed in 1883 as a depot on the Carson and Colorado Railroad.[
• The name was changed to Laws in honor of R.J. Laws, a railroad official.[2]
• A post office operated at Laws from 1887 to 1963.[2]
• The town of Laws was a railroad station along a Narrow gauge railway portion of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
• Today the town of Laws exists as a museum of Owens Valley and Eastern Sierra Nevada history. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Laws Railroad Museum and Historic Site
• Railroads displays
• The Laws Railroad Museum and Historic Site includes static displays of a train consisting of an oil-fired steam engine Steam locomotive and several freight cars from the narrow gauge Southern Pacific Railroad. The museum's display explains that the railroad was relied on by many Eastern Sierra communities before modern roads were built during the 1950s and 1960s.
• A station agent's home is located south of the railroad station. Docents portray the station agent on most days, helping visitors understand the period culture.
• The Museum includes several historic buildings moved to the museum site from downtown Bishop. There is a church and school house. There is a wooden Western Electric 11-type telephone booth. A vehicle on display was a 1949 ambulance, which was later painted black, stripped of emergency lighting, and used as a hearse. Medical implements from a historic local doctor's office are on display.
• [edit] Owens Valley history displays
• Owens Valley history, including construction and impact of the Los Angeles Aqueduct project, or "Owens Valley Aqueduct," is described in Museum displays.
• Today, land on all sides of the museum is property of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, of the City of Los Angeles.
• Photographs and docents show and explain that the Valley included large tracts of agricultural land; from the Paiute Native American era, through pioneer days, to the Aqueduct 'water wars era' that began diversions of water in the early 20th century to Los Angeles.



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Reference Books / Maps
• Slim Rails through the Sand by George Turner Trans-Anglo Books
• Images of Railroads of Death Valley - Robert P. Palazzo Arcadia Publishing
• SP Narrow Gauge by Marrow Hope Ferrell
• Jawbone - Sunset on the Lone Pine by Phil Serpico

[toms]

Virginia & Truckee Rail Road

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• The Virginia and Truckee Railroad (reporting mark VT) was built to serve the Comstock Lode mining communities of northwestern Nevada. At its height, the railroad's route ran from Reno south to Carson City, Nevada.
• In Carson City, the mainline split into two branches. One branch continued south to Minden, while the other branch traveled east to Virginia City.
• The first section constructed from Virginia City to Carson City was constructed commencing in 1869 to haul ore, lumber and supplies for the
Comstock Lode.

• The railroad was abandoned in 1950 after years of declining revenue. Much of the rail infrastructure was pulled up and sold, along with the
remaining locomotives and railcars. In the 1970s, with public interest in historic railroads on the rise, the old lines were rebuilt by private
investors, with an eye towards re-opening the lines.

• Today, the privately owned Virginia & Truckee Railroad Company operates as a heritage railroad, headquartered in Virginia City. The Virginia &
Truckee Railroad owns and uses the service mark "Queen of the Short Lines." The V&T Railroad runs up to 7 trains per day, many in steam
behind locomotive #29, a 2-8-0 Consolidation, or an ex-US Army GE 80 ton diesel from Virginia City from Memorial Day until the end of October
each year.
o 2-8-0 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a leading truck, eight powered and coupled driving
wheels on four axles, and no trailing wheels. In the United States and elsewhere this wheel arrangement is commonly known as a Consolidation.

• The public Nevada Commission for the Reconstruction of the V&T Railway has rebuilt the line from Gold Hill (connection with the current V&T Railroad) to Carson City, running the first train over the line in 68 years on 14 August 2009.

• The Commission acquired a 1914 2-8-2 steam locomotive (The McCloud no. 18), which had been in use by the Sierra Railroad, out of Oakdale,
California on special lunch and dinner trains.
o When the no. 18 arrived on the V&T, boiler problems were discovered, and the locomotive awaited repair at the Virginia and Truckee shops in
Virginia City.
o She went to Hollywood for the filming of Water for Elephants.
o She returned after her scenes were filmed and finally had her first revenue run on July 24, 2010.

• Cars and locomotives from the original railroad are on display at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City, at the Comstock History Center on C Street in Virginia City, at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento and at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.

• In order to ascend the mountain to Virginia City it was necessary to build an enormous trestle.
o Popular Nevada mythology says Crown Point Trestle was considered to be such a feat of engineering that it is featured on the Nevada State
Seal.
o This myth is mentioned by Lucius Beebe.
o Former Nevada State Archivist Guy Rocha debunks this myth on the state's Myth-a-Month page, pointing out that the state seal predates the
trestle and shows a viaduct, not a trestle

• The 3 principle at the time were -
o William Sharon
o Hume Yerington
o Darius Mills

[toms]

How Yearington NV got its name

by Guy Rocha, former Nevada State Archivist

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The myth
"Yerington received its name in the 1800s when residents hoped to flatter Carson and Colorado Railroad director H.M. Yerington into building a station there," wrote Elaine Wilson in Lyon County Reflections: A Look At Our Historic Past (1994). "The effort failed, but the name remains."
Well, not exactly! The confusion linking the official naming of Yerington to the original construction of the C&C Railroad has been around for as long as most old-time Nevadans can remember. Even author David Myrick repeated it in his landmark work Railroads of Nevada (1962, p. 214). However the real story is much more complex and confusing.

Actually, the railroad was built through Wabuska in the north end of Mason Valley in 1880-81, and bypassed "Greenfield" as Yerington was then known. The successful effort to change the town's name in 1894 had to do with renaming a post office.


The tale begins in Mason Valley, named for pioneer cattleman Nathaniel A. "Hock" Mason, when the valley was still a part of Esmeralda County. By 1870, a rancher named William R. Lee had settled upon 160 acres adjacent to the Walker River near where Yerington is today. Others soon followed, and the federal post office established on August 15, 1871 at David Cooper's nearby ranch was named Mason Valley.

At the time, the tiny agricultural crossroads had one store, a blacksmith shop, and a saloon run by James Downey. An Irishman born in Liverpool, England, Downey had recently moved with his family from the Esmeralda mining camp of Pine Grove.
Dayton's Lyon County Times of May 22, 1880 published an article on how the village received the curious name of Pizen Switch. "It was named by one James Hayes," according to a correspondent of the Reno Gazette. "He got on a terrible drunk there, and he said the whiskey was poison. So he commenced to drink Vinegar Bitters, and read the advertisement about the Railroad from Intemperance to Ruin. This suggested to him the idea of calling the place "Pizen Switch." As reporter and informant, the newspaper correspondence concluded, "I know this to be true, for I have been a resident of Mason Valley, and was there when the Switch was named."

The folklore abounds, and the facts are few. An essay on the history of Lyon County by Yerington attorney Nelson W. Willis published in Sam Davis' History of Nevada (1913) seriously confused the issue on the who, what, when, where, and why of Pizen Switch.
Through the 1870s, the rustic little burg grew to include some 200 residents, a one-room school, over twenty businesses, a mail and stage connection to Carson City, and a Methodist Church. It also acquired a new name. An effort beginning in 1879 to find a more suitable name than Pizen Switch culminated on November 20 with a formal christening of Greenfield and its new dance hall. Nevadans from miles around, including Virginia City and Gold Hill, celebrated the new name commemorating the green fields of Mason Valley. According to the Virginia Evening Chronicle, "...an organization was formed to be known as the Committee of Vengeance, whose duty it shall be to murder and scalp any and every citizen who shall hereafter call it Pizen Switch..."

However, the Carson & Colorado Railroad bypassed Greenfield in 1881. While the Lyon County Times of March 5, 1881 noted that the railroad company had purchased forty acres near "Hock" Mason's ranch for the site of a proposed town of Mason, the C&C abandoned the idea of building the railroad and the town due south of Wabuska and veered eastward before continuing in a southerly direction.

Greenfield still benefited by the nearby rail service and continued to prosper. In 1883, the state legislature extended Lyon County's southern boundary to include all of Mason Valley, as well as Smith Valley. Greenfield's citizens now traveled to Dayton, less than 2 hours by rail from Wabuska,
to do their county business instead of remote Aurora (or Hawthorne after 1883).

An effort was made to change the post office name to Greenfield from Mason Valley in 1893, however federal postal authorities informed the petitioners that there were already too many Greenfield post offices throughout the country. In a petition signed by 100 citizens, the name Yerington, as a second choice, was resurrected in early 1894. "Yerington was suggested as a pretty name for our village and post office," wrote the Mason Valley Tidings on March 22, 1894 "and also as a compliment to one of Nevada's most representative men, who has been identified with almost every enterprise of importance inaugurated in western Nevada for many years."
The Lyon County Times of Dayton wildly speculated that perhaps H.M. Yerington might construct a branch line of the C&C Railroad to the town of Yerington because of the name change; perhaps even lobby to move the county seat from Dayton to Yerington. There is no evidence of any official overture to the railroad baron or that he even contemplated a branch line with Nevada in the depths of a depression and the railroad losing money. The Legislature designated Yerington the county seat in 1911, less than a year after H.M. Yerington died and two years after the Lyon County courthouse in Dayton burned to the ground.

Fittingly, the town of Greenfield and the Mason Valley post office became Yerington on April 1, 1894 -- April Fools' Day. People have been confused as to how Yerington received its name ever since.

[toms]

C&C Tunnel

In all of the length of the 600 miles of the C&C they only had one tunnel. It was in Montgomery Mountain on the California border.
• The rail line climbed to more than 7,100 feet as it worked its way through Montgomery Pass.

• Engineers cut the only tunnel to maintain about a 2% grade needed for the route.


Boundary Peak is the tallest peak in NV.
It is the northernmost peak over 13,000 feet (4,000 m) in the White Mountains.
At 13,147 feet the peak is within the state of Nevada, although it is only about half a mile from the California state line.
Montgomery Peak at 13,441 feet is located just across the state line in California, and by most definitions Boundary Peak is a sub-peak of Montgomery Peak.
Boundary Peak is less than 1 mile away from Montgomery Peak
Boundary Peak is 82 feet higher than the second highest Nevada peak, Wheeler Peak at 13,065 feet .
Wheeler Peak is a non sub-peak and is located entirely within Nevada, and is sometimes considered the highest mountain peak in Nevada..

[toms]

Dayton, NV, Wabuska, Schurz, Luninng, Thorne, Mina, & Hammill Valley, CA


Hammill, CA Area

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Dayton, NV, Wabuska, Schurz, Luninng, Thorne, Mina

[DaveK]

Ghost Rails Roads of Anza Borrego

Since we lacked a clear definition of what constituted a "ghost Rail Road," the path was open (a little bit) to be reasonably inclusive in deciding what to discuss for this net. The RR that will be the subject of this post is the San Diego and Arizona Railway (SD&AR), which started construction in 1907, well over 100 years ago. Unfortunately, the passage of time, severe weather, and the unusually rough terrain over which the tracks were laid, have all taken an unrelenting toll on the Railway.

The bottom line, and probably the reason why the SD&AR qualifies as a "ghost Rail Road, is the fact that all efforts, over many decades, to restore the Railway to operating condition, have been thwarted. This has been largely the result of the very rough and unstable terrain of the 11 mile route through the Carrizo Gorge (now in the Anza Borrego Desert State Park.) As a result, beginning in the 1970s, the Railway has been on again and off again so much so that service was less than reliable, coming to a virtual halt many years ago.

While an entire net on this Railway would be necessary to adequately cover it's very interesting history, we will just mention a few highlights on the net. The most notable feature of the Railway's history is the seemingly endless string of disasters, all of which have plagued it from the very beginning, and have ultimately culminated in the Railway achieving "ghost rail road status" or close!

A little history and pictures:

The history of the San Diego and Arizona Railway is one of the most fascinating stories of the 1900s. It was built to open a commercial and passenger line from the Imperial Valley to San Diego, thereby completing a transcontinental route from east to west. The history of the SD&A Ry is chronicled in a terrific book by Reena Deutsch, Ph.D, entitled, "San Diego and Arizona Railway, The Impossible Railroad". Reena has made terrific use of a huge inventory of pictures ranging from its original construction to recent photos of the Railway as it exists today. She also presents the history of the Railway from its inception in 1907 to the present day.

In so many respects, the railway was not just a story of engineering marvels, but of the tenacity and devotion of its owners and operators throughout its life, which continues even today (well, sort of.) Unlike so many of the stories of old rail roads, this one involves one which you can both visit and experience today.

Here is the Book:

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Today, one of the most fascinating parts of the SD&A Ry is the Goat Canyon Trestle. It is constructed entirely of wood and stands in virtually the same condition today as it was when it was constructed almost 90 years ago. Time and the elements have weathered the wood, but it still standing. Quite a testament to the engineering work that went into its construction. Because the line is still being held open for "possible" use, at some undetermined point in the future, walking the tracks is both dangerous and prohibited. There are some exceptions, which we will discuss on the net, that will allow you to visit many of the tunnels and the trestles, including the one that spans Goat Canyon. If trips are offered in the future, they most likely will be posted on the Anza Borrego Desert Natural History Association website, http://www.abdnha.org/. More information on the Railway can be found at the website for the Pacific Southwest Railroad Musseum Association at https://www.psrm.org/ .

There are three ways to experience the Goat Canyon Trestle, 1) hike the tracks (usually not allowed and dangerous, 2) do the mountain climbing - boulder hopping hike or 3) helicopter. Of the three, option number two is the best, but it involves some very strenuous hiking and climbing. Definitely not for the faint of heart or those who are not fans of hiking. We did the boulder hopping hike a few years ago, in the winter, as this was the perfect time of the year (mild temps.)

The following are pictures from our hike to the Goat Canyon Trestle. Note: the pictures are numbered for reference during the net.

Picture #1. First views of the Goat Canyon Trestle as we crested the mountain

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Picture #2. Eastern portal of collapsed tunnel #15. It was this collapse in 1932 that gave rise to the construction of the the Goat Canyon Trestle. The trestle was not in the original construction of the RR. Note the tilting of the opening of the tunnel which was caused by movement of the earth which surrounded it.

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Picture #3. The Goat Canyon Trestle, today

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Picture # 4. Abandoned rail car

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Picture #5. Note the berm on the left side of the photo. This is where the track ended when tunnel #15 collapsed in 1932. On the right is the eastern portal to the old and collapsed tunnel #15.

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Picture # 6. Left over rails. Note the dates - 1913 and 1914.

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Picture #7. View of the Carrizo Gorge. This picture shows the impossible terrain through which the RR was constructed.

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Picture #8. Note the tracks in the distance. The dark portion are the side trestles that were necessary to support the weight of the trains as they traveled this very steep portion of the line

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Picture #9. These photos were taken near the western entrance of collapsed tunnel #15. It was this collapse, in 1932, which made it necessary to build the Goat Canyon Trestle. Note the buckled beams. It was a significant earth movement which caused this collapse.

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IMG_0406 (Large).JPG (83.21 KiB) Viewed 727 times