Winter timetable for the El Dorado Western Railroad

The railroad offers great family fun for all ages. Please turn out and support the "oldest railroad line west of the Mississippi River" and ride a piece of history. Effective November 3, 2013 to March 2, 2014, the El Dorado Western Railroad will operate on its winter timetable. We'll see you on the train!

Journal boxes on CPLT caboose trucks

Those old trucks in the Camino, Placerville and Lake Tahoe Caboose No. 2 are coming along:

CPLT caboose ready for painting

Here's a note from Keith Berry:

The Camino, Placerville, and Lake Tahoe caboose will be primed and painted over the next two weeks. The exterior will be a dark green, as determined form original paint chips. Once painted, the grab irons will be bolted onto the car. The cupola and freight doors remain to be completed. The wheel trucks are a current focus to insure they are ready when the car body is completed.

All volunteers working on El Dorado County's only home built-home and operated caboose are to be thanked for their efforts, time and determination to recreate this piece of local history.

As a side note, we have recently received a photograph showing the caboose at Camino after being significantly damaged from collision with an unknown source. Thanks to this event, the caboose was not sold to another railroad once the CPLT began using a diesel locomotive, which led to the caboose being stripped of its trucks, couplers and air brake equipment.

Thankfully, it was sold to a private party in Camino, then to another private party in Shingle Springs for a kids playhouse. The collision saved the caboose and (indirectly) led to it's donation to the museum, and now it's recreation on the El Dorado Western Railroad. Another photograph shows a much bolder white lettering on the sides and above the entry doors on each end.

Taking a day off

News from the Feather River Division of the El Dorado Western Railroad:

The downside of working six twelve-hour days each week is you get little time to yourself. We try to get away for dinner one or two evenings each week. Since our Sunday is day off, we assemble with the local saints for worship, then drive off to the former logging town of Greyeagle for lunch and time on the Internet. Sunday's drive was unique.

My wife and I work along the former Western Pacific Railroad Feather River Route. The line's current owner, the massive Union Pacific Railroad, has been running a lot of freight traffic over the rail line while the Donner Route has been closed. The railroaders among the staff at Oakland Camp (the housekeeping supervisor and myself) have enjoyed watching (and listening when we're busy) to trains each hour.

Catching three trains on a day off was exciting. I'll let the photographs tell the story.

As we drove east toward Blairsden and Greyeagle, an eastbound UP high-railer caught my attention at the Spring Garden siding. Thinking I could snap a photo as it crossed the bridge at Blairsden, we sped east on Highway 70. Instead of the track inspection vehicle, this local freight train appeared. My guess is that the high-railer took the siding.

The local took the hole (or siding) once he crossed the bridge. The waiting westbound intermodal freight was the superior train. As soon as the local cleared the main, the westbound gave two long blasts on the horn and proceeded west toward Keddie and the Feather River.

 

I took this photo as the westbound freight passed over the bridge at Blairsden.

 

Later in the day, Debbie and I saw this westbound coal drag as we returned to Quincy and the camp. With sufficient time to drive to the Williams Loop, we drove west. At the Loop, I photographed the train as it wound around under itself. Here the lead locomotive is ready to exit the loop and continue its westbound journey toward the canyon.

UP train at Oakland Camp

A westbound Union Pacific train slides past Oakland Feather River Camp at Mile Post 285.3 on the Canyon Subdivision (Western Pacific Feather River Route) on Sunday, May 5, 2013. The consist is made of covered bottom dump hopper cars. Up to a dozen westbound trains pass the camp on a typical day. The Western Pacific carried campers from Oakland to the camp on the California Zephyr beginning in 1924. The old Spanish Creek station was located about one-quarter mile from me (behind the camera). The Union Pacific acquired the WP in 1983.

Progress on the CPLT caboose rebuild

These images show the progress on the standard gauge Camino, Placerville and Lake Tahoe Caboose No. 2. El Dorado County's only home-built and operated caboose, is now being re-constructed at the Freight Station in Shingle Springs.


The caboose is being reconstructed at Shingle Springs. It's El Dorado County's only caboose (to our knowledge), having been built in 1930s from parts of an earlier boxcar caboose. The project is going very well. The car is being built over the track to allow for setting on wheel trucks when ready.

The wood working crew on the El Dorado Western Railroad. These are the type of guy's that worked in the car shop for Mich-Cal Lumber Company at Camino and the California Door Company at Diamond Springs. The kind of guy's who converted a boxcar into a passenger/freight car for the CP&LT around 1900, and then took it apart and built it into a proper caboose that ran until the 1950s.

Polish rail ingenuity

When you absolutely must place a tourist railroad in operation yesterday, anything is possible! This Polish rail club used a Fiat 126p with steel rail wheels. Last May, two rail fan clubs gathered for a picnic in the Polish town of Moszna. They commemorated the re-opening of a 2-1/2 kilometer section of abandoned railroad. Brush cutting along the line occured between November 2011 and April 2012.

This YouTube video comes courtesy of our Polish railroad brothers (English translation -- for Polish, click here).


Video description: "19.05.12 w Mosznej odbył się pierwszy piknik motoryzacyjno-drezynowy "KIWAJKA 2012". Uczestnikami członkowie "LANCIA KLUB POLSKA", OPOLSKIE STOWARZYSZENIE MIŁOŚNIKÓW KOLEI oraz inne zainteresowane osoby. Krótki film przedstawia przejazd pociągu drezynowego z uczestnikami pikniku odbywający się na świeżo oczyszczonym dwu i pół kilometrowym odcinku nieużywanej linii kolejowej nr 306."

Here's the rough translation: "5/19/12 in Moszna first picnic was held motoryzacyjno-drezynowy "KIWAJKA 2012". The participants of the members of the "POLISH CLUB LANCIA," ASSOCIATION OF RAILWAY ENTHUSIASTS OPOLE and other interested parties. A short video shows the drive train of the participants drezynowego picnic held on the freshly cleaned two and a half kilometer stretch of unused railway line No. 306th." (Translation by Google Translate.)