BGuthrie Photos: CA -- Sacramento -- California State Railroad Museum -- Building America exhibit

CA -- Sacramento -- California State Railroad Museum -- Building America exhibit:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon

underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.

Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 18.191.240.243 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.

Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]

Share: Facebook Twitter Digg
[1] SRRMBA_140718_001.JPG	[2] SRRMBA_140718_007.JPG	[3] SRRMBA_140718_009.JPG
[4] SRRMBA_140718_013.JPG	[5] SRRMBA_140718_017.JPG	[6] SRRMBA_140718_019.JPG
[7] SRRMBA_140718_022.JPG	[8] SRRMBA_140718_025.JPG	[9] SRRMBA_140718_028.JPG
[10] SRRMBA_140718_030.JPG	[11] SRRMBA_140718_032.JPG	[12] SRRMBA_140718_037.JPG
[13] SRRMBA_140718_039.JPG	[14] SRRMBA_140718_041.JPG	[15] SRRMBA_140718_043.JPG
[16] SRRMBA_140718_047.JPG	[17] SRRMBA_140718_049.JPG	[18] SRRMBA_140718_053.JPG
[19] SRRMBA_140718_056.JPG	[20] SRRMBA_140718_060.JPG	[21] SRRMBA_140718_062.JPG
[22] SRRMBA_140718_064.JPG	[23] SRRMBA_140718_067.JPG	[24] SRRMBA_140718_068.JPG
[25] SRRMBA_140718_070.JPG	[26] SRRMBA_140718_072.JPG	[27] SRRMBA_140718_075.JPG
[28] SRRMBA_140718_078.JPG	[29] SRRMBA_140718_081.JPG	[30] SRRMBA_140718_084.JPG
[31] SRRMBA_140718_086.JPG	[32] SRRMBA_140718_089.JPG	[33] SRRMBA_140718_091.JPG
[34] SRRMBA_140718_092.JPG	[35] SRRMBA_140718_094.JPG	[36] SRRMBA_140718_096.JPG
[37] SRRMBA_140718_099.JPG	[38] SRRMBA_140718_102.JPG	[39] SRRMBA_140718_105.JPG
[40] SRRMBA_140718_109.JPG	[41] SRRMBA_140718_113.JPG	[42] SRRMBA_140718_115.JPG
[43] SRRMBA_140718_117.JPG	[44] SRRMBA_140718_119.JPG	[45] SRRMBA_140718_122.JPG
[46] SRRMBA_140718_124.JPG	[47] SRRMBA_140718_125.JPG	[48] SRRMBA_140718_128.JPG
[49] SRRMBA_140718_129.JPG	[50] SRRMBA_140718_131.JPG	[51] SRRMBA_140718_133.JPG
[52] SRRMBA_140718_135.JPG	[53] SRRMBA_140718_140.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SRRMBA_140718_001.JPG: Building America: Abraham Lincoln, California, and the Union Pacific Railroad
2. SRRMBA_140718_007.JPG: California gold... An irrepressible Civil War... Abraham Lincoln... The transcontinental railroad. They are all related. Together they forged a state, a nation, and one of America's most enduring enterprises.
3. SRRMBA_140718_009.JPG: A Tree with Many Roots: The Union Pacific Railroad was founded in 1862, 150 years ago. The company's existence -- and all that it would mean for California and the West -- arose from a unique combination of factors. Some of them stretch all the way back to the very origins of the United States. Abraham Lincoln embodies one of those factors -- the need to settle the frontier. Born in Kentucky in 1809, he grew to maturity in Indiana and Illinois, always on the fringes of civilization. He understood that frontier economies could not develop without good transportation.
4. SRRMBA_140718_013.JPG: The Role of Government: "To produce the desirable changes as early as may be expedient... may require the incitement and patronage of government." -- Alexander Hamilton Hamilton wrote those words in 1791 but they would become the ideological foundation of Lincoln's support for the transcontinental railroad. "I owe that I am not a friend to a very energetic government." -- Thomas Jefferson Jefferson envisioned a nation of small farmers and small government. However, he seemed to violate his principles with the Louisiana Purchase that doubled the size of the United States. Given his interest in the West, would he also have supported a government-aided railroad to California?
5. SRRMBA_140718_017.JPG: Transportation Projects Are Expensive: Canals and railroads were expensive, and the private sector often could not build them without aid. The question of government support for industry is so fundamental that it was a key issue in the rise of America's first political party system. As early as the 1790s, Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Party believed that government had a role. Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party disagreed, and much to President Washington's dismay, our first political parties emerged. Decades later, Lincoln's position would more closely follow Hamilton's. Government-supported transportation projects are still controversial: Consider the current debate about whether California should build a high-speed rail system.
6. SRRMBA_140718_019.JPG: Gold! An old adage warns us, "Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it." Who wouldn't want gold? Yet its 1848 discovery in California did much to put the nation on the road to civil war. California had to become a state -- but should it be a slave state or free? Under the Compromise of 1850 it entered the Union as a free state, but the South demanded a tough fugitive slave law that outraged anti-slavery people in the North. Tensions would boil over again within six years. When they did, the question of transcontinental railroad would be at the heart of the controversy.
7. SRRMBA_140718_025.JPG: Frontier Transportation: Lincoln's Illinois did not have its first steam-powered railroad until 1838. Before that time transportation depended mostly on rivers -- but rivers did not always go where they were needed. Canals were one answer, but like rivers, they froze in winter. Roads were usually dirt, and they often became impassable in heavy rain. Lincoln believed in steam railroads before he even saw one. Running for the state legislature in 1832 -- his first campaign for public office -- he wrote:
  No other improvement... can equal the utility of the rail road. It is a never failing source of communication... not interrupted by either high or low water, or freezing weather..."
8. SRRMBA_140718_030.JPG: The Railroad Fuels North-South Tension: Almost from the moment of statehood, California's and easterners started thinking of a transcontinental railroad. The state and its gold had to be defended! The railroad question inflamed sectional tensions. North and South each wanted the railroad to originate in its section of the country -- and each was determined to deny it to the other. Congress and the nation were gridlocked.
9. SRRMBA_140718_032.JPG: Honest Abe, the Railsplitter: This 1860 campaign poster shows Lincoln splitting fence rails -- consciously playing up his frontier origins. Lincoln did not care for such packaging of his life story and he also disliked the "Honest Abe" label -- not because he was not honest, but because he preferred "Abraham."
10. SRRMBA_140718_037.JPG: The Tragic Prelude, 1939 John Steuart Curry Original painted on Kansas Statehouse wall Abolitionist agitator John Brown was one of the outsiders who stirred up violence in Kansas. This 1939 painting tells the story. Brown seems to summon a tornado and a prairie fire as the North and South mass for battle.
11. SRRMBA_140718_039.JPG: The Kansas-Nebraska Act: The South wanted the railroad built through slave states; the North wanted it built through free states. Attempting to break the stalemate, Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed that each new territory decide for itself whether it wanted to be slave or free. This idea would take the question out of congressional hands and hasten construction. The proposal became known as the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Settlers from the North and South poured into Kansas Territory hoping to influence its admission to the Union as a free or a slave state. Violence resulted: Whole towns were burned to the ground and settlers became victims of unprovoked massacres. The nation was in an uproar, unparalleled in its history.
12. SRRMBA_140718_041.JPG: Lincoln Re-Enters Politics: "Free-soilers" like Lincoln were outraged by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Slavery would now be possible even in new Northern states. Lincoln, who had left politics in favor of his law practice years earlier, decided to run for office again. He ran for the US Senate from Illinois in 1854 but lost. He ran for the state's other Senate seat in 1858, this time against Stephen A. Douglas. The famous Lincoln-Douglas debates were part of this campaign. Despite Lincoln's best efforts, Douglas was returned to the Senate -- but the election had made Lincoln a national figure. Two years later he would win the presidency.
13. SRRMBA_140718_043.JPG: Lincoln and Dodge in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Planning the Route of the Central Pacific Railroad in 1859, not dated C. Everett Johnson
14. SRRMBA_140718_047.JPG: "He... Shelled my Woods": Lincoln toured the western states (today's Midwest) in 1859, hoping to gain more support for a possible presidential run. In Council Bluffs, Iowa, he had a chance encounter with Grenville M. Dodge, who would later become Union Pacific's chief engineer. Dodge had already done some surveys and was convinced that Nebraska's Platte River Valley was the best route for a transcontinental railroad. Dodge later recalled:
  By his kindly ways [Lincoln] drew from me all I knew of the country west... As the saying is, he completely shelled my woods, getting all the secrets that were later to go to my employers.
15. SRRMBA_140718_049.JPG: Victory -- And Disunion: Slavery was the main issue of the 1860 election. But the transcontinental railroad -- which was closely linked to the slavery question -- was also important. Lincoln was the Republican candidate. The party platform "imperatively demanded" a Pacific railroad and urged the federal government "to render immediate and efficient aid in its construction." Lincoln won just 40 percent of the popular vote in a four-candidate race, but he won a clear majority of the electoral votes. He did not get a single popular vote in nine Southern states. Eleven Southern states would secede from the Union when the Civil War began a few weeks after Lincoln took office.
16. SRRMBA_140718_053.JPG: The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862: The Pacific Railroad Act of July 1, 1862 established the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean.
17. SRRMBA_140718_056.JPG: Re-Inventing America: The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 was followed by another in 1864, intended to improve upon the original. The railroad acts were part of a larger program of legislation that was intended to settle the West and re-invent America. * The Homestead Act provided free land to settlers. * The Morrill Act provided land grants for states to establish universities. The University of California at Berkeley is one such institution. * The National Banking Acts established a uniform national currency and made credit more widely available on the frontier.
18. SRRMBA_140718_060.JPG: President Lincoln's Railroad Car, Alexandria, Virginia
19. SRRMBA_140718_062.JPG: "Let Us Strive On" Developing the frontier -- building America -- was part of Lincoln's political DNA. Slain by an assassin's bullet in 1865, he would not live to see the transcontinental railroad finished. Six weeks before his death, as the Civil War was ending, he delivered his second inaugural address. He said:
  Let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds... to do all which may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves...
  It would take another four years to build the railroad, but the project would fulfill one of Lincoln's oldest and fondest wishes.
20. SRRMBA_140718_064.JPG: The First Transcontinental Telegraphic Message: The first-ever telegraph sent across the entire country originated from the BF Hastings Building right here in Old Sacramento, on Second Street. This message was sent on October 25, 1861, to Washington DC:
  ... [The people of California] desire in this, the first message across the Continent, to express their loyalty to that Union & their determination to stand by the Government in this, its day of trial. They regard that Government with affection & will adhere to it under all fortunes. Stephen J. Field Chief Justice of California
  The California State Telegraph office occupied the first floor of the Hastings Building and the California Supreme Court chambers were located on the second floor.
21. SRRMBA_140718_067.JPG: A Pacific Railroad: The transcontinental railroad was born in strife and completed in peace. It helped to bind up the nation's wounds, just as Lincoln would have wanted. In the North and the South, it was seen as a great national undertaking that would bring the two sides together again. On May 10, 1869, the entire nation listened by telegraph as the last spike was driven -- perhaps the first mass-media event. Sacramento celebrated for three days. It was a pacific railroad -- with a small "p" -- a work of peace that made America move again, in more ways than one.
22. SRRMBA_140718_070.JPG: The Work Has Never Stopped: Building a nation is not a single act to be finished and then forgotten. Although Union Pacific's first mission was accomplished in 1869, its work has never really stopped. The railroad enhanced America's sense of nationhood: * It accelerated the development of California and the entire West. * It democratized travel -- making it possible for ordinary Americans to cover vast distances faster than ever before. * It raised America's standard of living. The nation could partake of California's bounty and the Golden State could benefit from the industrial might of the East.
23. SRRMBA_140718_072.JPG: Open-Air Observation: This Central Pacific passenger train, with its special open-air sightseeing car on the rear, would stop at Cape Horn grand overlook to allow the passengers to see into the American River Canyon. Thomas Houseworth, c 1870
24. SRRMBA_140718_075.JPG: When Disaster Struck: Sometimes "building" means "rebuilding." In the early 1900s the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific were both under the control of EH Harriman, a man known for decisiveness. In 1905 a land company wanted to irrigate California's Imperial Valley. It made several blunders and a serious flood resulted. Harriman took over the project. He spent $3 million (about $70 million today), and returned the river to its banks. The Valley became one of America's most fertile regions. In 1906, San Francisco was nearly destroyed by earthquake and fire. Harriman rushed in from New York. He stayed for six weeks and personally directed recovery efforts from his private car. His trains and boats ferried supplies into the city and refugees out of it. Nobody knows how much free transportation he authorized.
25. SRRMBA_140718_078.JPG: Leland and Jane Stanford Residence, Palo Alto, California (after earthquake), 1906
26. SRRMBA_140718_081.JPG: Union Pacific's portion of the first transcontinental railroad was about 1,000 miles long. Today's UP is 32,000 miles long. Here's how it grew. The Early Years: 1880: * Union Pacific acquired Kansas Pacific and Denver Pacific railroads. * KP ran from Kansas City, Kansas, to Denver. * Denver Pacific linked Denver with Cheyenne, Wyoming, where it connected with the first transcontinental route.
27. SRRMBA_140718_084.JPG: The Early Years: 1905: * The San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad was finished between its namesake cities. * With acquisition of this line, UP's route map would remain mostly unchanged for more than 75 years.
28. SRRMBA_140718_086.JPG: Pacific Fruit Express: In 1906, Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads jointly established a company called Pacific Fruit Express. PFE ordered 6,000 refrigerator cars to speed the shipment of west coast produce to eastern markets. Those cars represented an investment. Many people thought they would sit idle for most of the year. But with a sure supply of cars, farmers began to plant several crops each year. They benefitted [sic] themselves, PFE, and the American consumer alike. By 1921 PFE owned almost 20,000 cars, each of which carried an average of nine loads per year.
29. SRRMBA_140718_091.JPG: The Early Years: 1950-2000: * Railroads began merging into bigger companies. * With the advent of deregulation in the 1980s, the merger movement accelerated.
30. SRRMBA_140718_092.JPG: 1851-1980: Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific: The "Rock Island" has a storied past: * It completed the first bridge over the Mississippi River in 1856. When steamboat interests protested, Abraham Lincoln represented the railroad successfully in court. * The Rock Island once stretched from Chicago to Colorado and from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Texas. * Union Pacific wanted to buy Rock Island in the 1950s and 1960s. Several other railroads fought the proposed merger and it was denied by federal regulators. * The Rock Island was abandoned in 1980. * The system was sold piecemeal to several railroads, including Chicago & North Western, Missouri-Kansas-Texas, Missouri Pacific, and Southern Pacific. * All of these railroads were later acquired by UP. So, although UP was unable to acquire Rock Island directly, it ended up with many of its routes.
31. SRRMBA_140718_094.JPG: 1982: Union Pacific Acquires Missouri Pacific: * With this acquisition UP gained access to St. Louis, Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, and Texas. * Missouri Pacific management was highly regarded, and many MP executives would help guide UP for years.
32. SRRMBA_140718_096.JPG: City of Las Vegas Drumhead: Lighted "drumhead" signs like this were often affixed to the last car of the named trains. This drumhead was used on the City of Las Vegas between Los Angeles and the Nevada gaming resort from 1957 to 1962.
33. SRRMBA_140718_099.JPG: 1982: Union Pacific Acquires Western Pacific: * By 1980, Southern Pacific planned to merge with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, which was traditionally a fierce competitor of UP. * Such a merger would have altered the historic relationship between UP and SP. * In order to protect its access to Northern California, UP acquired the Western Pacific Railroad in 1982. WP's route ran from Oakland to Salt Lake City, roughly parallel to SP. * In a surprise to the entire industry, federal regulators later denied the Santa Fe-Southern Railroad merger.
34. SRRMBA_140718_105.JPG: 1988: Union Pacific Acquires Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad: * M-K-T, or "Katy," had the shortest route between Dallas and Kansas City -- the nation's second-biggest rail center and a key junction point with other railroads. * It carried significant connecting traffic from other railroads and was a big grain hauler throughout its namesake states.
35. SRRMBA_140718_109.JPG: 1988: Union Pacific Acquires Chicago & North Western: * C&NW's earliest predecessor was Chicago's first railroad, founded in 1848. * For decades C&NW was UP's favored connection between Omaha and Chicago. * This merger gave UP direct access to Chicago. (The 1982 Missouri Pacific merger had given UP a roundabout route to the nation's rail capital by way of St. Louis.) * The C&NW also gave UP access to Wyoming's Powder River Basin, the nation's main source of low-sulfur coal and a significant traffic generator.
36. SRRMBA_140718_117.JPG: America's First Steamliner: In 1934, Union Pacific introduced the first streamlined train in the US. It was called the M-10000 and it was a radical departure from typical trains of the time. Powered by internal combustion (at a time when the steam locomotive was still king) and made of lightweight aluminum alloy, the train could zip down the tracks at 100 mph. In fact, Union Pacific people nicknamed it "Little Zip." The public responded: Half a million people, including President Franklin Roosevelt, walked through the train on its nationwide tour. Other streamliners followed, connecting Chicago with every major city on the West Coast. Union Pacific service was legendary, but Amtrak began operating most of the nation's passenger trains in 1971.
37. SRRMBA_140718_125.JPG: The Arsenal of Democracy: World War II was the finest hour for America's railroads. rails were the conveyor belt in President Franklin D Roosevelt's "Arsenal of Democracy," carrying 95 percent of everything that moved in the US. The Union Pacific-Southern Pacific "Overland Route" linked San Francisco and the Midwest. San Francisco was a key staging point for the Pacific Theatre. Southern Pacific's Sacramento Shops were an important part of the war effort, keeping the "Overland Route" fluid despite heavy traffic. Just as Rosie the Riveter worked at the aircraft plants and shipyards, local women also worked at the SP Shops. Union Pacific gave permission for volunteers to operate a canteen for military personnel at its depot in North Platte, Nebraska. Using their own ration coupons, these volunteers fed more than 6 million personnel. Many of them were on their way to or from California.
38. SRRMBA_140718_129.JPG: Today: Union Pacific's Global Role as the nation's biggest railroad: * Owns 32,000 miles of track in 23 states. * Operates 3,288 route-miles in California. * Is a leading carrier of: - Agricultural commodities - Automobiles - Chemicals - Industrial goods - Energy resources * Is a key link in the global supply chain * Is one of the world's outstanding transportation companies. It all began with Abraham Lincoln's signature.
39. SRRMBA_140718_135.JPG: Today: The Union Pacific in California: * UP operates 3,288 route-miles in California. * Handles three million cars in the state. * Annual purchases in the state amount to $207 million. * Capital spending is $241 million. * UP's 4,741 California employees earn $400 million in annual salary -- most of which is undoubtedly spent in the state. * The railroad serves the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Oakland, and its north-south rail corridor paralleling Interstate-5 corridor connects the state with Portland and Tacoma/Seattle. * A facility at Bernicia handles automobiles for import and export across the Pacific.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: California State Railroad Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The California State Railroad Museum is a museum in the state park system of California, USA, interpreting the role of the "iron horse" in connecting California to the rest of the nation. It is located in Old Sacramento at 111 I Street.

The museum features 21 restored locomotives and railroad cars, some dating back to 1862. The "Sierra Scene" shows a large scale mockup of a construction scene high in the Sierra Nevada representing Donner Pass circa 1867, featuring the locomotive Gov. Stanford. Other exhibits show how the influence of railroads changed American society, influencing travel, commerce and daily life, as well as the lives of railroaders and the diversity of people who work on railroads. Changing exhibits featuring photography, ephemera, and artifacts from the museum's collection, add depth and incidental information to the overall story of railroad history. The Museum has an extensive educational program for elementary students from across the region to help them learn about railroad history using re-enactments, costumed docents, and including train and handcar rides.

Adjacent to the main museum building is a reconstruction of the 1870s-era Central Pacific Railroad passenger station and freight depot on Front Street, which houses historic and contemporary railroad equipment. In early 2011, the interior remained closed to public use, but is occasionally open for special events. During the summer, the Sacramento Southern Railroad, operated by the museum, takes passengers on a 40-minute, 6-mile (9.7 km) roundtrip route along the Sacramento River on a portion of the Walnut Grove branch of the former Southern Pacific Railroad. The Sacramento Southern Railroad owns the Walnut Grove Branch right-of-way that extends south from Sacramento along the eastern bank of the Sacramento River. A few miles of track were rebuilt along the levee near Freeport, California as part of a US Army Corps of Engineers project. The CSRRM hopes to one day have a longer excursion line, perhaps as far as Hood, California. At that location the railroad passengers could disembark the train and take a tourist steamboat back up the Sacramento River to Old Sacramento.

History

The museum has its origins in 1937, when a group of railroad enthusiasts in the San Francisco Bay Area formed the Pacific Coast Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society. This organization worked for years to promote the idea of a railroad museum, donating 30 historic locomotives and cars to the California Department of Parks and Recreation to be the nucleus of a State-operated museum in Sacramento. The Museum's first facility, the Central Pacific Railroad Passenger Station, opened in 1976. The Railroad History Museum was completed in 1981. Steam-powered passenger train service on the Sacramento Southern Railroad began in 1984, with the Central Pacific Railroad Freight Depot opening three years later. Railtown 1897 State Historic Park in Jamestown was added to the Museum complex during 1992.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].