Valleycation: Sacramento Railroad Museum

 Think you might like to be a docent?  We had a one hour tour at the Railroad Museum in Sacramento.  The training to learn all the ins and outs of being a museum guide lasts 55 hours.  Our tour guide, Bob, is a docent trainer.

I was surprised to see an entire display about the train control station at Allensworth in the Railroad Museum.   The Santa Fe line, built after the transcontinental railroad was completed, runs north and south through the San Joaquin Valley.  It was a line built without customers.  The railroad established towns as they went.  Except for Visalia and Porterville, which were on the Butterfield Stage Coach route, the towns in Tulare County are railroad towns.   Allensworth is one of the few towns in CA that has been preserved as a model of what life was like in the early 1900s in a rural railroad town.  Allensworth, pictured below, is a rural town with an interesting twist.  Colonel Allen Allensworth, a freed slave and retired military officer, wanted a town in which African-Americans could prove to the world that they could be productive on their own in spite of prejudice, and limited opportunities.  He purchased 800 acres and founded the only African-American freedom colony in California, Allensworth.  The impact of this town was farther reaching than most non-African-American people realize.

Allensworth is located in what used to be the bottom of Tulare Lake, the largest (but shallow) freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River.  After it was drained for agricultural purposes, alfalfa and other crops thrived in the fertile river bed.   The town of Allensworth prospered when the Santa Fe made daily visits carrying their farm goods mostly to LA.  However, the town was more than just a stop.  Allensworth was a train control station for the Santa Fe line which meant that it was manned 24 hours a day with men trained to keep trains from running into each other .  

In the display below you can see the boxcars which were make-shift homes for some of the railroad workers.   The boxcars had a breezeway to try to keep them cool during 115 degree summer days in an era before air conditioners.

The Santa Fe Railroad went through Allensworth, and stopped here to get water for their steam engines.  Trains pumped and used 50,000 gallons of water a day.   You can see the size of the water tower in comparison to the size of the buildings.  Allensworth had a great aquifer, but after a few years of constant use, the water table dropped, and with it, the easy access to water.  In 1914 the Santa Fe Railroad moved its control station from Allensworth to nearby Alpaugh, and much of the industry began to die out in Allensworth.

Bob didn't take his group upstairs, but I enjoyed wandering around up there as well.  Fortunately some people could sleep, and you could move around in the cars. More than likely these two items were separated by more than a foot or two on board a train.  

The dining set in the picture below looks like it was from the 1950s.  This set would have looked perfect in my parent's 1957 ranch home with a copper-colored refrigerator, sink, and stove top and a turquoise and copper-colored couch with turquoise swivel chairs.

There are some trains with elegant dining cars downstairs in the museum.   The chandeliers in this dining car didn't rival the ornate Venetian hand-blown glass  chandeliers, but considering the setting, they were beautiful.

At the top of the stairs as you climbed to the third floor, this gigantic little boy looked like he was waving to you.  NO, he was the epitome a boy enamored with trains. 

From the invention of trains to present day, kids of all ages have loved playing with trains.  These kids are starting young.  When did you first start to play with trains?

I've been to many museums, but this is one of the more fun, interactive museums you can visit, and it's conveniently located in Sacramento.