SIERRA AND DESERT RAILS

About the Book

A selective survey, in black and white photos and text, of the railways of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, and the old mining lines in the desert just beyond the mountains, in the last of the steam era, from 1947 to 1959. A few photos gave glimpses of surviving lines in the diesel era 25 years later.

The two main-line routes, Southern Pacific’s Donner Pass and Western Pacific’s Feather River Route, were enjoying an Indian Summer of activity after World War II, with traditional traffic, including passengers, and perishables, still on the rails, and the postwar construction boom bringing more traffic. The Feather River Route still boasted great steam locomotives in 1947 and ‘48; Donner was all-steam, behind their signature cab-forward AC class 4-8-8-2s, until 1950. The sight of these giants roaring through the woods stirred the blood of eager photographers. Now, as both routes enjoy a massive resurgence of traffic in the age of globalization, seems an appropriate moment to gather glimpses of these operations a half-century ago.

There were a number of short-line railroads in the Sierra, mostly temporary logging lines. Chapter 2 records the longest-lived of these, the Oakdale Connection— the common-carrier Sierra Railroad and two major connections that survived into the 1950s, the standard-gauge Pickering Lumber and narrow-gauge West Side Lumber. Twisting through dry canyons and over tortuous passes, these lines were survivals of California’s industrial scene of the early 20th Century.

What can only be remembered is the splendidly photogenic railways in the deserts just beyond, in Nevada and Eastern California— SP’s secondary main line to Oregon via Alturas, the much-publicized Virginia & Truckee from Reno to Minden, and above all the ancient 3-foot gauge Owens Valley line, the surviving fragment of the Carson & Colorado line built in the 1880s to serve a mining boom that never quite arrived. The Owens valley line, situated in a dramatic area rich in poignant and controversial history, symbolized the glory and pathos of Western history at a time when people were close to the land. Chapter 3 records the line and its spectacular surroundings.

About the Author

A native of San Francisco, Fred Matthews has been an enthusiastic rail photographer from age 13. He taught history in England and Canada for some thirty years before returning to California. He is the author of Northern California Railroads: the Silver Age 1945-60, and many essays on railroad and cultural history.