 Minerva SystemsDr. Cora Angier Sowa |
CORA SOWA'S RIGHT-OF-WAY:RAILROAD HISTORY OF CORA ANGIER SOWAPage 2The Orange Empire Railway Museum |
The grounds of the Orange Empire Railway Museum. Some of my "old friends," like the red cars of the Pacific Electric, reside here. (They are seen in their original habitat at the Belmont Tunnel and in the Toluca Yards, just below my childhood home, on the first page of Cora Sowa's Right-of-Way). .
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You can also contact me at casowa@aol.com.
On the present page you will find:
To go to other pages of "Cora Sowa's Right-of-Way," choose the following sections:
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- The Poughkeepsie Bridge: Trains Across the Hudson River
- The Poughkeepsie Bridge reborn as "Walkway Over the Hudson"
- Click here for the sixth page: Engineers in the Family I, Walter Angier, civil engineer
- Click here for the seventh page: Engineers in the Family II, Philip Angier, civil engineer
- Click here for the eighth page: Engineers in the Family III, Alexander Lodyguine, Russian (and American) inventor
The map below, adapted from the Metrolink system map, indicates the places depicted in the photos of Southern California on these pages. On the right, you can see where the extension of the tracks from Riverside to Perris, site of the Orange Empire Railway Museum, is being built.
The Orange Empire Railway Museum
Old streetcars and trains live on in Riverside County
Some of the old Los Angeles streetcars, as well as steam and diesel locomotives, coaches, boxcars, cabooses, track maintenance equipment, and other memorabilia can be seen at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, California, 60 miles east of Los Angeles in Riverside County. There is a loop track for running the streetcars — double-gauge, as PE cars ("Red cars") were standard gauge, LARY cars ("Yellow cars") were narrow gauge — and the "Main Line" which will eventually extend all the way to the Perris station, where by 2012 there will be Metrolink service from L.A.
The Museum has a Web site at http://www.oerm.org. The site at http://www.railswest.com/OERMguide.html" also has information about the Museum.
The pictures below were taken by me and my husband on various visits. The Museum is in constant development, with new car barns and other structures being built, more cars, engines, other vehicles and machinery being acquired, and facilties upgraded. Therefore, what you see today may look different tomorrow — but the change is always for the better.
Pictures from a cab ride |
A ride in an Alco switcher
At the Orange Empire Museum, you can take a cab ride in whatever locomotive is running, if the engineer is taking passengers that day. The pictures below are from a ride we took in January, 2010 in an Alco switch engine. On RUN ONE days, you can also make a reservation to learn to actually operate the locomotive yourself. (The rates are: Diesel switcher, $190.00 per hour, Southern Pacific U-25-B 3100 $248 per hour, and Santa Fe FP-45 locomotive 98 $298 per hour. A day operating a steam engine costs $499 — they are often sold out!)
The Grizzly Flats Railroad |
Emma Nevada and Chloe
One of the collections at the Orange Empire Museum is the Grizzly Flats Railroad, which was the private garden railroad of Ward Kimball, Disney animator. Two narrow gauge engines, which he (re-)named "Emma Nevada" and "Chloe," as well as little cars to go with them, were donated to the Museum. Kimball redecorated the little engines, and Emma Nevada in particular is done in 1880's style, with pulchritudinous dancing ladies on the headlight and other engine parts, as shown in the following photos. A replica Southern Pacific narrow gauge turntable has been constructed behind the "Grizzly Flats Enginehouse." Pictures of it also appear below.
Repair shops, car barns, and miscellaneous equipment |
All the other stuff
The Orange Empire Museum (unlike the California State Railroad museum in Sacramento, where every engine is displayed artistically) is like a big attic or back lot, where you can spend hours just poking around. In addition to the streetcars, there are switch engines, road diesels, cabooses (including the "Birthday Caboose," which can be rented for parties), several steam engines (only one of which, Ventura County No. 2, is in operating condition as of 2010; there is a nice tank engine, but I was told that it is beyond repair), old track maintenance equipment, signals and track structures, oddities like O'Neill's Streamline Diner, and an array of smudge pots from the old California orange groves. Among the most interesting are the old machines for making obsolete parts for ongoing repair work, such as a machine for making bolts with now non-standard threading. The pictures below show some of these other works in progress.
In the Orange Groves
Below are pictures of the way the orange groves used to look. The first picture is a photo from the 1950's (taken near Ventura, California by my father while on the job on the Ojai Branch), showing how smudge pots were deployed in actual duty. Souvenir postcards, such as the ones that follow (including one that includes a train), never showed the pots!
To go to the previous and following pages, choose the following sections:
- Click here for the first page:
- Click here for the third page:
- Click here for the fourth page:
- Click here for the fifth page:
- Click here for the sixth page:
Engineers in the Family I,
Walter Angier, civil engineer
- Click here for the seventh page:
Engineers in the Family II,
Philip Angier,
civil engineer
- Click here for the eighth page: Engineers in the Family III, Alexander Lodyguine, Russian (and American) inventor
