Placerville Railroad was incorporated to purchase the Placerville & Sacramento Valley Railroad. The line subsequently reached Placerville on March 29, 1888, the first passenger train arrived on April 9, and the first freight reached the depot a few days later on April 18.
(Almost) A Century of Southern Pacific On May 15, 1888, the railroad became
part of the Southern Pacific under its non-operating subsidiary, the Northern Railway, in 1888, and then ten years later under the SP on April 14, 1898. The primary sources of traffic on what became the SP’s Placerville Branch were timber from the El Dorado National Forest and locally grown fruit. Timber was hauled to Placerville over 65 miles of logging railroads including California Door Company’s narrow gauge Diamond & Caldor Railway and Michigan California Lumber Company’s eight-
mile standard gauge Camino, Placerville & Lake Tahoe Railroad, both of which were formed in 1904. Fruit grown in surrounding areas was packed and loaded in Placerville. When
the Michigan California
Lumber Company closed its mill at Camino in 1986, CP&LT operations ended between Camino and Placerville that June, scrapping of the track began on September 3, and it was complete by December. With the primary reason for the branch’s existence gone, SP operations between Folsom and Placerville ended in 1987, just one year shy of the line’s 100th anniversary.
Inactive, Not Abandoned
Many years of inactivity and neglect followed, causing the line to fall into disrepair, including overgrown brush and trees, significant flooding, and several washouts. But, importantly, the
line was never abandoned.
On October 1, 1991, the Sacramento- Placerville
Transportation Corridor
Joint Powers Authority (SPTC-JPA), made up of the City of Folsom, the County of El Dorado, the County of Sacramento, and Sacramento Regional Transit (RT), was formed for the purpose of acquiring and preserving the Placerville Branch Rail Corridor
between Sacramento
and Diamond Springs as a rail-banked corridor under the Rails to Trails Act. SPTC-JPA successfully
negotiated
an agreement with Southern Pacific, and a Notice of Interim Trail Use was subsequently issued by the Surface Transportation Board on July 27, 1995. Earlier that year, on April 17, the Folsom, El Dorado & Sacramento Historical Railroad Association (FEDSHRA) incorporated as a 501(c)3 organization and went on to establish the Folsom Railroad Museum at the depot in historic downtown Folsom in 1998. In 1999, the group restored the city’s historic gallows-style turntable that was built in 1856, and in 2002 it returned the Weyerhauser Skagit-built motor car to operation. During
this same period, as the Sacramento region’s population grew and its light rail service proved popular, RT extended what would come to be called the Gold Line eastward from downtown Sacramento, reaching Mather Field in
September 1998, Sunrise Station in June 2004, and finally Folsom on October 15, 2005, echoing the line’s original eastward expansion over a century earlier.
The New Placerville & Sacramento Valley In January, 2008, SPTC-JPA issued a Request for Proposals to operate excursion
ABOVE: Sacramento Regional Transit’s Gold Line light rail, built on the original Placerville Branch right-of-way, reached Folsom on October 15, 2005. On September 18, 2010, a light rail train with mixed paint schemes heads for downtown Sacramento just after departing the Gold Line terminal at Folsom. RIGHT: The Placerville Branch primarily hauled citrus and forest products, but the line also carried limestone. Southern Pacific GP9 No. 3899 leads a short train of limestone hoppers eastward past the double crossing of South Shingle Road at Brela, just east of Latrobe, on June 17, 1976. VIC NEVES PHOTO
OPPOSITE: Dozens of swallows that nest under the U.S. Highway 50 overpass swarm vociferously as the first P&SVRR train of the day departs Hampton Station in Folsom on May 15, 2016.
rail service on the line between Folsom and Diamond Springs. FEDSHRA submitted a proposal, was
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