California State Railroad Museum

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Prakash Tendulkar

I was invited to attend a guided tour of Railroad Technology Museum to be constructed at the site of former Southern Pacific Railroad's Central Workshop located in Sacramento, CA, on May 14, 2005.

CSRM maintains a museum, roundhouse with turntable and operates steam loco hauled tourist trains for a few miles of track adjacent to Sacramento River.

I decided to catch 07:40 A.M. Capitol bound for Sacramento from San Jose's Cahill Station and return leisurely the same way. Unfortunately, unforeseen obstruction in traffic, changed my fate for the day and I had to hit the road after missing this train. No problem, I made 200 kms. journey in exact 2 hours flat. Well, you gain some, you lose some.

Since I had three hours at hand before the group tour, I decided to visit Museum first.

CSRM sign.

This model 4-6-2 greets you at the entrance.

Typical clock seen at RR Depot.

Central Pacific No. 1 Gov. Stanford R. Norris 1862 4-4-0. This loco is named "Gov. Stanford", founder of Stanford University.

Southern Pacific No. 4294 Baldwin 1944 4-8-8-2. Retired 3/1956; they were cab-forward designed for traffic on heavy grades with tunnels such as Donner Pass.

The designers had understood that fireman's handling coal was not enough to satisfy high horsepower steam locos and they switched over to oil burning locos, instead with cab forward to facilitate their operations at low speed in the tunnels.

Engineer's controls in SP 4294.

View of 4294 from 2nd floor gallery.

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