Niles Canyon Railways

I am the 2nd person to review this book and, coincidentally, I live in Niles Canyon in Eastern Fremont, right next to the original mainline trackage of the Western Pacific Railroad. First of all, I want to mention that the author got the year of the Western Pacific's merger with the Union Pacific wrong. On page 2, the author wrote that the merger took place in 1981. It actually happened between 1982 and 1983. I want to forgive the author for making this factual error because nobody is perfect and everyone including myself make a lot of mistakes. I am giving this book five stars because of its excellent selection of photographs, some of which were taken just a few miles from where I live today. My favorite photo is of Western Pacific F7 diesel #918, one of four that passed by my house several years ago, and was used to pull the very popular Christmas "Train of Lights" back to Sunol in December 2007.

When the original Transcontinental railway was built (which runs right in front of my house), it wasn't really quite transcontinental. It stopped at Sacramento, California. From there passengers and freight had to transfer to riverboats to get the rest of the way to San Francisco. The route between Sacramento and San Francisco was completed just after the Golden Spike was driven and ran south from Sacramento to Tracy and then west over Altamont Pass through Niles Canyon to the town of Niles. From there it tied into other railroads that provided continuous rail connects to San Francisco. In 1909 the Western Pacific built their route through the same canyon (but on the other side) into Niles. Through this canyon they ran the famous California Zephyr. (The California Zephyr still runs as Amtrak train No. 5/6, but not through Niles canyon. It just passed my house, westbound, four hours and three minutes late today.) By 1984 the route through Niles canyon was abandoned. This would have ended an era, but a preservationist group stepped in. With volunteer members doing all the work, track was put down on the old right of way, a magnificant collection of locomotives and rolling stock was moved there and the Niles Canyon Railway is one of the premier operating railroad museums in America. This magnificant book documents the Niles railroad history. It is profusely illustrated with pictures from the earliest days to the famous 'Train of Lights' (60,000 Christmas lights on twelve cars). I don't know how many photographs the book has, most pages seem to have two pictures, but they are an outstanding collection of vintage photographs to go with the new pictures of vintage equipment. If you're wondering just where Niles is, it was incorporated into the city of Fremont, northeast of San Jose. Read the book, then go spend a day (or a weekend) at the Niles Canyon Railway.