
By Aaron Isaacs, HRA editor
At every HRA conference I try to take plenty of photos of the museums and railroads we visit. The California State Railroad Museum is three venues in one.
- The indoor display museum
- The as yet undeveloped Sacramento Shops
- the Sacramento Southern demonstration railroad
So here’s a photo tour. Look for future posts on our side visits to Railtown 1897, the Niles Canyon Railway and the Western Railway Museum.

Central Pacific #1 Governor Stanford was built in 1862, shipped around Cape Horn and entered service within a block of the museum in 1863. It’s one of several 19th century locomotives preserved in the 1930s by the Pacific Coast Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society that became the nucleus of the CSRM collection.

Virginia & Truckee 4-4-0 Genoa (Baldwin 1873) pulls V&T combine #16 through an 1884 truss bridge. At right is a narrow gauge consist headed by North Pacific Coast 4-4-0 #12 (Baldwin 1876).

Southern Pacific cab-forward 4-8-8-2 #4294 (Baldwin 1944). Alongside it is the hand-drawn 60-foot map of the entire Central Pacific, displayed for the first time for the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.

After leasing them for over a decade, CSRM has finally acquired the former Southern Pacific Boiler Shop (foreground) and the adjacent Erecting Shop.

Inside the Boiler Shop. There are 25-ton and 50-ton overhead cranes. Replacing the very leaky roofs of both buildings will be the top priority.

The Erecting Shop is really two buildings. This is the newer west half, where CSRM stores rolling stock. Nearest is Nevada Copper Belt motor car #21 Yerrington (Hall-Scott 1911).