Widely known as North America’s most popular railroad museum, the California State Railroad Museum has exciting plans to dazzle, delight and engage post-Thanksgiving visitors with a special “Small Train Holiday” focus on November 25 and 26.  Expanded holiday offerings inside the Museum include fun interpretive handcar rides, crowd pleasing scale models and toy train displays, story time with Mrs. Claus, period-appropriate holiday decor and much more. In addition to these new activities, the “Small Train Holiday” focus includes other fun favorites such as amazing scale models and toy train layouts on display throughout the Museum, a Polar Express model train running on the “Small Wonders”

The California State Railroad Museum will debut a fascinating documentary-style exhibit titled “Wedlock’s Gift: California Railroad Depot Images in Ink” in two phases with the first set of 26 sketches beginning on September 1, 2011 and continuing through February 2012.  Then, in August 2012, the second set of 26 sketches will debut and continue through December 2012.  Following the completion of his quest to interpret many of California’s disappearing historic railroad depots in brush and ink, commercial artist Walter J. Wedlock gifted the complete set of 52 drawings and one watercolor to the California State Railroad Museum in 1985 after seeing the collection together for the first time d

As part of a special exhibition debuting on August 26, the California State Railroad Museum is proud to showcase award-winning photographs from the prestigious Center for Railroad Photography & Art’s 2011 Creative Photography Awards Program. With submissions received from all over the world, the theme of this year’s competition was “A Story in Three Photographs,” which challenged photographers to tell a story through three images that depicted an event or a day unfolding, illustrated a span of time, or was a creative interpretation of a single subject.  The top prize in the Center’s 2011 Creative Photography Awards Program went to Miško Kranjec of Ljubljana, Slovenia.  Second place went

Wednesday evening, the Department of Parks and Recreation presented plans to expand Old Sacramento’s excursion train and further explore the underground ruins to provide visitors a more exciting learning experience of the Gold Rush, commerce and river transportation. The preliminary general plan for Old Sacramento State Historic Park would span 20 years. The project is currently set to develop the Front Street area between J and I streets. Capital District Superintendent of Capital District State Museums and Historic Parks Catherine Taylor explained that the project will educate visitors on the Gold Rush era. The underground ruins will feature active archaeological digs and exhibits and

The California State Railroad Museum and Historic Park is calling all volunteers to enter its 50th volunteer academy – volunteers who, according to officials, are the museum’s backbone. “We couldn’t run the museum without our docents. They are everything,” said Theresa Gonsolis, a guide and volunteer coordinator. She added that the museum – founded in 1981 – is considered the premiere indoor railroad museum in the country. Applications for the volunteer docent class are online and are being accepted through May 31, though Gonsolis said there is some “wiggle room” in the deadline. “Our philosophy is: the more the merrier,” she said. Docents are only required to work seven hours per mon

Track that was laid to be part of the Trans-Continental Railroad did not fulfill its destiny but it was celebrated as the oldest railroad track west of the Mississippi River this weekend during the Folsom Historic Railroad and Transportation Festival . "130 years ago the track ran from Sacramento to Folsom. The route was changed and now it runs from Sacramento to Auburn and beyond," said Larry Bowler, one of the Festival's organizers. It became only a local freight line and travelled just beyond Placerville. Many years ago the track was torn out five miles west of Placerville. This is the first time the festival has been in Folsom. The past four years it's been held in Ione on a smalle

Midtown, Sacramento, CA An early morning, wayword, DUI driver, gets his car stuck on the tracks. Per Sac PD at 2:11 a.m. Tuesday, they responded to a call for a vehicle stuck on the railroad tracks at the 19th and N street railroad crossing. When officers arrived, they discovered a vehicle that had made a right turn onto the railroad tracks and high centered on the tracks, delaying Union Pacific trains until 3 a.m. The driver was arrested for driving under the influence.       Follow our SacMav Breaking News Twitter  

Light, Camera, Action! The California State Railroad Museum is set to debut a visually appealing exhibit titled “Rails and Reels: Hollywood, Trains and the Making of Motion Pictures” on Friday, July 2, 2010.  The upcoming exhibit will feature a variety of railroad-related artifacts, such as scale models of train cars used for special effect crash scenes in the 1939 epic Union Pacific, a full-size smokestack and headlamp used to “backdate” steam locomotives to represent the “old west,” and station signs used in movies, including “High Noon”; a costume from the 1979 television movie Orphan Train; plus sheet music, movie posters, lobby cards, original film scripts, and other Hollywood-themed

A 1950s Lionel train advertisement shows a father, mother, little girl and boy peering into a window display featuring a model train going through a city, over a bridge and into the mountains. The father appears to be the most interested -- head cocked, hand on his chin, ready to help his child build the toy train set. An adjacent Lionel Train advertisement shows a father sitting on the ground assembling a train set, while his son sits in the background frowning. California State Railroad Museum's "Some Assembly Required" exhibit, which opened today, featured a somewhat similar scene. Many families were in the museum, but the historical toy exhibit seemed to strike the strongest chord wi

 A greener locomotive will make its official California debut in Sacramento Wednesday. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) will present the locomotive during a press conference at the Sacramento Valley Rail Station, which holds a prestigious spot in railroad history as the western starting point for the Transcontinental Railroad. Caltrans and Amtrak are partners operating "Amtrak California." Caltrans owns this locomotive, plus 16 others and 88 train cars. Amtrak operates the trains and stations. The first in the Amtrak California passenger fleet, the locomotive has been upgraded to operate using the cleanest diesel technology available for train engines. “This is r

On Thursday night, Sacramento's Preservation Commission held a special meeting to review plans to expand and refurbish Sacramento's historic passenger depot. The depot's environmental impact report includes two alternatives: a "move the depot" option that would involve rolling the historic building 400 feet north to meet the new track alignment, or a "don't move the depot" option that would build an expanded station between the current depot and the new track alignment. The commission was asked to provide their recommendation to City Council as to whether the city should move the station or not. Union Pacific's railroad tracks adjacent to the depot currently form a sharp S-curve that limi

 R Street has been a railroad corridor for almost as long as Sacramento has been a city, but it was once part of our flood protection system. In 1854, engineer Theodore Judah planned the first railroad in California, the Sacramento Valley Railroad (SVRR), using R Street as its main line through town on its way to Folsom. However, in the 1850s, flooding was a regular occurrence in Sacramento, and our complex series of levees and street raisings was only beginning. In order to keep the new railroad line above water, a levee was needed along R Street.   The original map of Sacramento included plans for streets as far south as Y Street (now Broadway), but when the SVRR was built there were f