Author Topic: Western Narrow Gauge  (Read 5489 times)

Ted Miles

  • Museum Member
  • Fireman
  • ****
  • Posts: 327
    • View Profile
Western Narrow Gauge
« on: September 16, 2008, 11:50:12 PM »
Folks,
My local narrow gauge museum in Fremont, CA is The Society for the Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources. The Carter Brothers built whole railroads; freight cars, passenger cars and other equipment between about 1874 and 1892.

Now the California State Railroad Museum has been house cleaning because they lost a large piece of their indoor storage.

They have given equipment to the Carter Brothers Society from the North Pacific Coast Railroad, a forerunner of the Northwestern Pacific RR going north from San Francisco to Eureka.

They had a narrow gauge line going to Point Reyes until about 1930. The NWP 5511 is a baggage caboose that may have been built by the Carters and its history is being researched as we read this.

The State Museum had it restored back in 1969; but as far as I know it has never been on display. The Society plans to redo some of the work as the car's details were not very well understood at the time.

For pictures i suggest a visit to the Carter Brothers web site. The Society has re-created a portion of the Centerville Branch of the South Pacific Coast RR which was pulled by horses for its entire existence between 1882 and 1909.

I walked through the caboose for the first time a couple of weeks ago and the visit was a long time coming! But I am glad to have had a chance to do it at long last!

Update in 2020: they have produced an excellent Historic structure Report on the car, using several newly discovered photographs of this very camera shy baggage caboose.
Ted Miles
« Last Edit: August 13, 2020, 03:30:58 PM by Ted Miles »