Lumber, Mining and Movies, the Story of the Railroad

By Sarah Lunsford

Pond at Railtown 1897, Tuolumne County, California (photo by Sarah Lunsford)

It’s no accident that movies about the Gold Country, with its mining and logging
operations, always seem to include a steam locomotive along with miles of track that
seem to go on forever.
In the real world railroads played an important part in the expansion of the Mother Lode
back in the late 1800s and continue to serve the region today.
Although hauling supplies to mining towns was a duty of the railroads in the early days,
the engines arrived essentially just as the hard rock mining phase of the Gold Rush was
winding down.
“The primary reason for the railroad was to haul lumber out and mining machines in and
out,” said Sam Cook, railroad enthusiast.
Just like today, in the late 1800s the logging industry and its chief export of wood and
wood products was a top-of-the-list agricultural resource in Amador, Calaveras and
Tuolumne counties.
“In those days most lumber companies in the Sierra’s had their own railway,” said Cook.
Those railroads included those run by the West Side Lumber Company and the Yosemite
Sugar Pine Lumber Company that became the Pickering Lumber Company in Tuolumne.
Many times logging companies and their complimentary mills operated their own
railroads to haul logs around their own properties before taking them to mills to be
finished.
Typically these mills were stops for main lines like the Sierra Railroad and the Amador
Central Railroad that ran in and out of those county’s from the Central Valley where they
met up with either the Southern Pacific or Santé Fe lines.
In Tuolumne County the West Side Lumber Company ran its own railroad with up to 90
miles of track of narrow (3-feet wide) gauge track in the forest that connected with a
depot in Tuolumne City where Sierra Railroad then took the freight out of the Mother
Lode.
Yosemite Sugar Pine/ Pickering Lumber Company ran even more track throughout the
forest. It ran over 100 miles of standard (4-feet, 8-inches wide) gauge track, throughout
the forest, even running a line into what is now the South Grove in Big Trees State Park.
The lumber companies not only hauled wood products around using their railroads but
also transported employees and their families as well.
During logging season, the companies would set up small towns in the forest bringing in
mobile cabins and other buildings for their employees by railcar.
“Whole families grew up in the woods,” said Patrick Karnahan, independent marketing
consultant.
Today, two mills operated by Sierra Pacific Industries in Standard and Chinese Camp still
haul their finished product, such as wood chips, out by the Sierra Railroad.
Two companied operated their own company railroads in Calaveras County. In 1885
McKays Clipper Mill located along Love Creek Road a couple of miles below Arnold ran
tracks to transport lumber around it property. The other was located in Copperopolis
where they used rails to move around their ore carts and railcars to transport mined
copper.
In Calaveras County, Blagen Mill located in White Pines didn’t operate its own railroad,
but does own a slice of history from that early railroad/lumber era in the form of
Yosemite Lumber Company Engine 4.
“There was not much of any railroad up here,” said Robert Ash, Sierra Nevada Logging
Museum board member.
The Shay engine, a geared steam locomotive that is much more powerful than a typical
steam engine, was the workhorse of logging companies.
“It’s (a shay) a type of locomotive that can handle pretty heavy loads and steep terrains,”
said Ash.
“They were the 4-wheel drives of locomotives,” said Karnahan.
“(It’s) the last remaining locomotive from the Yosemite Lumber Company,” said
Karnahan, who was instrumental in tracking the engine down and bringing it to the
logging museum.
Shay engines were no racers, going about 10 miles per hour, but could haul heavy loads
up grades that regular steam locomotives couldn’t.
Reflections of the bygone era of railroads traversing the forest can still be seen by visitors
to those wooded areas today.
“Many of our forest service roads are old railroad grades,” said Karnahan.
Sal Manna writes a column about Western Calaveras County History in it he refers to the
railroads and the Valley Springs train depot, a reminder of the railway that once came
through the area at the crossroads of Highways 12 and 26.
This railroad had its end point at the Calaveras Cement Plant in San Andreas, where
arguably the best cement was produced before finding its way around the world.
In Tuolumne County, Sierra Railway not only hauled freight between the Sierra’s and the
Central Valley, it was a passenger train as well, making a run over the Angels Camp to
take supplies to that town as well as passengers.
If there were no passengers waiting to get on the train and no freight to offload or pick
up, the train would go right through a depot. The way the engineer knew if someone
wanted to get on was if they stood by the railroad tracks and flagged the engineer. This is
where the term “flagstop” came from.
It took approximately 3 hours to make the 21 mile trip from Jamestown to Angels Camp.
Although the Sierra Railway stopped serving Angles Camp in 1935, from the description
of the trip it was a sure hair raiser because the train switch-backed down the side of New
Melones, stopped at the town, went over the river by bridge before switch-backing up the
other side.
According to Karnahan, that particular branch took passengers between Angels Camp
and Sonora so fans from the two towns could watch their baseball teams compete.
These trains, consisting of four to six open excursion cars and a caboose, ran on Sundays,
taking up to 150 players, fans and bands to the town where the game was played.
Records show that the Angels Camp fans were a little more genteel than their Sonoran
counterparts. Many times the train leaving for Sonora after a game in Angels Camp was a
couple of hours late because of the after game revelry that left a few fans wondering
exactly where the train station was.
Neither the town or the railroad tracks to this destination still exist. The town was
flooded when New Melones Dam was built while the tracks were taken up when the train
stopped running.
The trains not only transported passengers and hauled freight to the Mother Lode but
drove progress as well.
“Eventually they helped to build quite a few dams in the area,” said George Sapp,
Railroad Restoration Lead Worker at Railtown 1897.
Dams like Don Pedro and New Melones were built with the help of the railroads, as well
Hetch Hetchy.
In Amador County the Amador Central Railroad transported mostly lumber products in
and out of Amador County.
The railroad started out as Ione & Eastern Railroad in 1904 and was taken over by
Amador Central Railroad in 1909.
Locomotives continued to haul freight, primarily lumber for the Georgia-Pacific then
Sierra Pacific lumber mill in Martell, until 1997. A portion of the line was kept open by
SPI under the name of the Amador Foothill Railroad for a few years after that before it
too, closed.
“There just wasn’t enough business to keep it open,” said Cook.
For the past 10 years the Amador Central tracks have been maintained by the
Recreational Railroad Coalition. A group that operates privately owned, track inspection
handcars (otherwise known as speeders), velocipedes and other human powered rail
vehicles.
With most unused tracks taken up and sold for salvage, there are few reminders of the
trains in the tri-county area with one of the most prominent being Railtown 1897. A
California State Park located in Jamestown that is also known as the movie railroad.
Railtown is a fascinating place to visit with buildings dating back to its opening day in
November 1897.
The roundhouse tour offers visitors the unique opportunity to see a variety of trains from
steam engines used in the movies to the cars that were used on the Jamestown, Angels
Camp route.
Railtown is also known as the movie railroad because of all the movies, television shows
and commercials that have been filmed there.
“It’s always been a favorite of the movie industry,” said Sapp who has worked on many
of the movies himself during his 20 plus years at the park.
“Working on the movie shoots is always a lot of fun,” he said.
Sapp said one of his favorite shoots was a commercial with Aflac Insurance. The
commercial featured a damsel in distress tied to a rail tracks with a train coming down the
tracks towards her. The sequence was filmed on location at Jamestown and Sapp not only
worked on the shoot but drove the train as well.
“I didn’t get any face time,” he said, “But it was still a lot of fun.”
The first movie filmed at the location was The Red Glove, a short serial movie filmed in
1919.
Since that time it has seen many familiar westerns such as High Noon.
Television programs such as the Lone Ranger, Lassie, Night Rider, East of Eden, The A
Team and a BBC documentary, A Work of Giants.
“Whatever they want, we do it for them,” said Sapp.
Part of working with the entertainment industry is dressing up the trains to fit their parts.
Although any train in the park can be used for filming, Engine 3 has received the most
face time of them all. It has appeared in over 50 movies and 20 television series’. Its
credits include Back to the Future III and Unforgiven.
Built in 1891, Engine 3 is currently experiencing major renovation that was prompted by
the need for a new boiler to comply with current federal regulation. The work is being
financed through a matching grant.
“It’s such a visible piece of history,” said Sapp. “We’re going to put it back in the
movies.”
Although Railtown does operate a train for tourists with trains from the Sierra Railway
Company out of its depot, going down the tracks and coming back, it and Sierra Railroad
are not the same entity, a common misconception among visitors and locals alike.
In 1937 the Sierra Railway went through a reorganization in which the freight side of the
company continued as the Sierra Railroad Company and the Jamestown property
eventually was taken over by the State of California and turned into the historical park.
“It was started as a way to haul lumber and here is it over 100 years later and is still the
same,” said Sapp.
Over a century later and the railroads are still serving the Mother Lode, not a bad track
record for the iron horse.