Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad Steam Train. Full Ride Experience & History

Travel over trestles, through towering redwood groves and up a winding narrow-gauge grade to the summit of Bear Mountain as conductors narrate the history of Roaring Camp, the railroad and the forest.

In the 1880s, narrow-gauge steam locomotives were used to haul giant redwood logs out of the mountains. Roaring Camp’s steam engines date from 1890 and are among the oldest and most authentically preserved narrow-gauge steam engines providing regularly scheduled passenger service in America.

Felton, Calififornia – Among geared locomotives, three companies (Shay, Heisler and Climax) are widely credited with dominating the logging and industrial marketplace. Shay locomotives were designed in 1872 particularly for Western U.S. logging operations. Roaring Camp Railroads owns several Shay locomotives, a Heisler, Climax, and five diesel engines. Not all are operational as some are undergoing renovation and extensive refurbishing. On any given day, one might see one or more of the following steam locomotives transporting visitors deep into the heart of the breathtaking Santa Cruz Mountains.

The Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad is a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow-gauge tourist railroad in California that starts from the Roaring Camp depot in Felton, California and runs up steep grades through redwood forests to the top of nearby Bear Mountain, a distance of 3.25 miles (5.23 kilometers).

History

The Big Trees Ranch was bought in 1867 by San Francisco businessman Joseph Warren Welch to preserve the giant redwood trees from logging. It was the first property in the state acquired specifically for that purpose. In 1930, the Welch family sold part of the property to Santa Cruz County, which eventually became part of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.
The fire-damaged trestle seen in 2023

Roaring Camp Railroads operations began in 1963 under the guidance of F. Norman Clark (1935–1985), who was the founder and owner. His purpose was to keep a family tradition of constructing railroads and to "bring the romance and color of steam railroading back to America". In 1958, Clark found the engine Dixiana abandoned near a coal mine in the Appalachian Mountains; he described it as looking like a " rusty pile of junk". Dixiana was reconditioned and began service in 1963 on rails that had been shipped around Cape Horn in 1881. The railway route was laid out so that as few trees as possible would have to be cut on the 170 acres Clark acquired with a 99-year lease of the larger Big Trees Ranch.

Originally, two large trestles formed a "corkscrew" loop at Spring Canyon, but these were destroyed by a 1976 fire (alleged to have been arson), the smoke from which could be seen from San Francisco. Within six months, a switchback was constructed to bypass the severed loop and the line was returned to service. The switchback has an estimated 9.5% grade. The length of the tail tracks in the switchback restricts the trains that may be operated to six cars or fewer; longer trains require a diesel switcher to run at the rear and bring the excess cars up and down the switchback separately.

Clark's wife, Georgiana, Vice President of Operations assumed the ownership and management responsibilities following his death on December 2, 1985.[3] In 2003, the first "Day Out with Thomas" special event was held. The event was the single largest in the 40-year history of Roaring Camp, with an estimated 25,000 participants over a three-day period. On December 28, 2015, a train collided with a stop block on part of the switchback, injuring six people. The cause was a combination of driver error and a mechanical issue with the locomotive's throttle valve.


The American Society of Mechanical Engineers collectively designated Roaring Camp's Shay, Climax and Heisler engines National Mechanical Engineering Historical Landmark (#134) on August 1988, as examples of small, slow-speed 19th century geared locomotives.

Locomotive #1: Built in 1912, it was originally owned by the Alaculsy Lumber Company, and was used on the Smokey Mountain Railroad in Tennessee. The Dixiana is named for a small narrow-gauge mining railroad, now abandoned, out of Dixiana, Virginia. Notable characteristics include the boiler, which was set left of centerline to compensate for the weight and position of the engine – giving it a lopsided appearance – and the engine design of a three-cylinder exhaust system.


All departures are round trip to Bear Mountain, returning to Roaring Camp.

MORE INFO
https://roaringcamp.com

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