PLACERVILLE Apex
Folsom Lake
50 Cummings El Dorado FOLSOM FOLSOM JCT. Glenn Shingle Springs Iron Point Hampton Sta. 50 Out of Service Sprekelsville White Rock Quarry 49
EDW motorcars between Shingle Springs and Diamond Springs
49 Diamond Springs
Bullard between Hampton and White Rock P&SV passenger trains Deer Creek Bridge RD. Sugar Loaf Mountain
SRT - Sacramento Regional Transit SP - Southern Pacifi c PSV - Placerville & Sacramento Valley EDWR - El Dorado Western
Branch owned by the Sacramento-Placerville Transportation Corridor Joint Powers Authority
P&SV motorcars only between county line and Latrobe
Latrobe 0 1 MILES New Life for the Placerville Branch Illustration by Otto M. Vondrak. Not all roads, rail lines, and stations shown. Not an offi cial map. ©2016 White River Productions
motor car rides in Folsom began the next year and were extended to Latrobe in July 2011, bringing the first passenger trains there since 1957. In November 2012, SPTC-JPA granted P&SVRR a five-year license to operate trains between Folsom and the El Dorado County line, and public train rides began the following June. P&SVRR continued restoring track to Class 1 standards, and installed modern crossing gates and flashing lights at White Rock Road crossing in September. In 2014, the Cotton Belt caboose was restored to operational condition, and the first public train rides between Hampton Station and White Rock ran on September 13. The first full season of regularly scheduled train rides was in 2015, and on October 15, the railroad operated a special train for the Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society’s annual convention. In 2016, ridership continues to grow, and P&SVRR operated its first wine train on May 15 in partnership with Nello Olivo Wines, an El Dorado County winery located in Placerville, for a sold-out crowd.
Trains to Latrobe and Beyond? P&SVRR’s vision is for world-class
rail excursions on the entirety of the historic and scenic Placerville Branch. The railroad currently operates on 8.4 miles of track in Sacramento County
between Folsom Junction (milepost 111) and the El Dorado County line (milepost 119.4), but most of it is in congested urban areas of Folsom where excepted track conditions and the railroad’s operating license terms prohibit carrying passengers, so public train rides only run on a 1.6-mile section between Hampton Station (milepost 116.38) and White Rock (milepost 118) where Class 1 track ends. El Dorado County allows only motor cars to operate on the seven miles from the county line to Latrobe (milepost 126.4). The El Dorado County Historical Museum operates its own motor cars over 8.5 miles of track between Shingle Springs station (milepost 137) and the end of track at Missouri Flat Road in the town of El Dorado (milepost 145.5) as the El Dorado Western Railroad (EDWR), but neither EDWR nor P&SVRR equipment is allowed to carry passengers on the 10.6 miles between Latrobe and Shingle Springs, which happens to be the location of some of the most spectacular vistas on the entire line. Because the tracks are part of
a multi-use corridor that includes trails, excursion rail operations on the Placerville Branch in El Dorado County have been controversial. Some trail advocates favor exclusive use of the corridor for hikers, bicyclists, and equestrians, and some county residents
categorically object to the operation of any railroad equipment whatsoever. On March 28, 2011, the county approved what became known as the “Shingle Springs Compromise Plan,” which called for the complete removal of the rails between Shingle Springs and the county line to fund construction of a trail on the roadbed, but still allowed EDWR to operate excursions between Shingle Springs and El Dorado. Fortunately, SPTC-JPA has unequivocally stipulated that the rails must remain in place. P&SVRR’s next goal is to restore an additional 1.4 miles of track to Class 1 standards to allow trains to run past White Rock all the way to the El Dorado County line, almost doubling the current run’s length. Once that is complete, the next step is to extend Class 1 track into El Dorado County to allow trains to run all the way to Latrobe and eventually Shingle Springs. However, on May 10, 2016, a special meeting of the Board of Supervisors of El Dorado County was held to decide whether to even continue allowing P&SVRR to run motor cars to Latrobe in 2016 as they have done for the previous five years. Thankfully, after many hours of passionate testimony by corridor stakeholders and occasionally contentious public comments by various interest groups, the board voted unanimously to allow P&SVRR to continue operating
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SACRAMENTO FOLSOM
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