The article on the Association of Tourist Railroads and Railway Museums page says "The Golden Gate Railroad Museum has been notified that it will have to vacate its temporary site at the Niles Canyon Railway in 2016."

So which is it? Did GGRM opt to move, or were they forced out by PLA?

That probably depends on the source you ask. Nobody wins here. Perhaps the fit was bad, but a bad fit is better than no place........ for a while. Best wishes to both groups as they find their ways forward.

dave

Maybe you are onto something here. On this thread http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... 10,3692757 someone said they're moving to Tracy.

As Randy pointed out, the original agreement for GGRM to share space with PLA was five years. The purpose was to provide GGRM with a temporary home until it could find a new place. The agreement was extended five years after GGRM could not find a place to go.

A Futures Committee was formed. Three PLA members plus 3 GGRM members were on the committee. The seventh member was Randy Hees who was a moderator who did not belong to either organization. Many meetings were held to try to try to develop future agreements between the two organizations.

What makes the most sense to me would be for the two organizations to merge. (Who has ever heard of rail enthusiasts being rational?) Many members already belong to both organizations. However the Futures Committee was unable to reach any agreement that was acceptable to both organizations. Joint meetings of both organization boards moderated by Randy also tried to reach an agreement.

When it became obvious that no agreement could be reached, the PLA Board decided that it was not in the best interests of PLA to extend the GGRM contract in its current form once it expires in March, 2016, ten years after the initial agreement was made. The PLA board has agreed to assist GGRM in any way possible to ensure their move from the canyon is successful.

In my personal opinion some of the problems are that PLA is about ten times the size of GGRM. It would not be a merger of equals. PLA is run by volunteers; GGRM has paid employees. GGRM is interested in SP mainline operation; PLA is more interested in short line and industrial operations. GGRM is more interested in creating a brick and mortar museum than PLA.

Some answers to previous suggestions on this post: The Niles Canyon Railway and Brightside shop are on land leased by PLA from Alameda County. Adjacent privately owned farm land is next to NCRY. However it would have to be re-zoned from agricultural open space for use by a museum if the owner were willing to sell. However scheduling of use of the track by two organizations would continue to be a problem.

Another issue on this move came up in an Altamont Press thread:
http://www.altamontpress.com/discussion ... msg-115567

Garrett Brisbee, GGRM President said in this thread that "the main reason for our departure is making sure the 2472 has an indoor facility to both protect it and preserve it. There is no available room in the canyon to build a suitable facility."

That makes a lot of sense, there's no point in restoring a steam locomotive if it is just going to sit outside and decay again.

I hope that the people at GGRM working on moving to Santa Cruz take the destructive nature of salt air into account in their planning. Also, the politics in Santa Cruz can be unpleasant.

Maybe the Tracy idea would be better.
http://www.tracyrail.org/

Is the land around Niles Canyon RR line protected from development, or will the line run through residential neighborhoods 20 years from now?

Much of Niles Canyon (between Niles and Sunol) itself is either public open space or is held as watershed and is protected from development. Additionally, the area is hilly, and so less housing friendly, with hills that are somewhat unstable, subject to earth movement... (and the Hayward fault runs within a mile of Niles) East of Sunol there are less restrictions on development, although much is developed as high end residential, which could block dense urban development. The SF Bay area has active zoning and planning, and efforts to preserve "green belts".

Niles Canyon Railway has already had to deal with local efforts to block track extensions into downtown Pleasenton.

A bigger threat is to their right of way, which is owned by Alameda County, acquired as right of way preservation. It is possible that PLA/NCRy will have to share the line with commuter rail service. That could push PLA off the tracks on weekdays. It would also bring pressure to upgrade the tracks and bridges. The good part of that is that track improvements and maintenance would be done by others. The downside would be loss of control and limited access. One big issue are the three large historic bridges, from 1896, 1898, and 1906, all sitting at least in part on 1860's masonry. The bridges (and the line) are listed on the National Register, giving them some level of protection.

Also a threat are efforts to upgrade the road through the canyon (hwy 84)... Its a twisty narrow two lane road. Caltrans would like to "improve" it... and their road model would negatively affect the viewscape.

Of course these problems are a result of development and urban growth, and urban growth means more potential riders for the railroad.

Randy

A basic problem with the former SP track for modern operation in Niles Canyon is that it never was improved very much over the years. It is a good example of railroad building in 1869 with 25 mph curves.

Alameda Commuter Express trains run on former Western Pacific track in Niles Canyon now owned by Union Pacific. About one month ago consultants for ACE and Union Pacific inspected the former SP track to determine the cost of upgrading it to modern standards. The consultants even included geologists.

A rough estimate of $100 to $120 million dollars to upgrade six miles of railroad came from this inspection. ACE never will have this kind of money and UP is very unlikely to want to spend it. So the Niles Canyon Railway track is unlikely to change.

Another figure that came out is that it probably would be cheaper for ACE to build new track to bypass Niles Canyon. Since ACE is a commuter line, scenery is not a selling point for ticket sales.

So, since this thread got bumped, I'm wondering how GGRM's doing with the move? Their website has not between updated since January.

A couple months ago they had a few updates on their Facebook page and they had WRRC out there helping them set everything up for moving. They were rebuilding the trucks and air brake lines on some of the passenger equipment. I drove down there in March and it's hard to tell from the road what is going on since there are trees and brush blocking a bit of the view.

GGRM is looking into relocating their equipment, including around 25 cars and 12 locomotives, to a place along the current/historical NorthWestern Pacific Railroad, at least for the short term, according to this video posted on the NWPHS facebook page. I can't quite make out what the NWP RR guy is saying but it sounds like Santa Rosa, CA is the destination:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/eW5p0uL8o8E

Very much a last minute move it would seem, and the track up there needs work according to the NWP guy, but he says that they are exploring possible tourist operations..

From the NWPRRHS Facebook page:

"This just in, from Altamonte Press

'I am pleased to announce that we have signed an agreement with the Northwestern Pacific Railway to relocate the museum's steam locomotive Southern Pacific #2472, diesel locomotives, and passenger rolling stock. The equipment will be stored at a secured facility in the north bay that is to be constructed by the GGRM. This facility will allow the museum to continue the restoration of our heritage equipment in support of our mission to provide "living history experiences" to the public.
The movement of the equipment over the general railroad system is subject to inspections and other contractual conditions that are in process. The target to complete this relocation is in early 2017 with an exact date not yet determined.
I know that there will be additional questions, and we will share additional details with you as soon as possible. While we will be publishing this in our newsletter, we wanted to make sure that our members found out as quickly as possible.
Thank you for your patience.
Regards,
Garrett Brisbee
President, Golden Gate Railroad Museum'"

An update on this topic has been posted at the HRA news page. Apparently the story is that the location at Schellville is temporary, and the GGRM is still looking for a final site. That is unfortunate, but understandable, if trackage rights on that stretch were not possible.
http://www.atrrm.org/blog/2017/02/golden-gate-site-search-continues/

Had they inquired with Western Railway Museum, to utilize the northwestern portion of their mainline which is only used by speeders? It is hard to think of available track and land that is not under heavy development pressure in the Bay Area. If only they started this search 40 or 50 years ago...

WTF? Schellville is temporary? I guess this means that GGRM will simply relocate from Niles Canyon only to do this all over again in a couple of years. It is really, really unfortunate that they have put themselves in this position by not making the Niles Canyon thing work.

Despite the presence of some preserved WP steam locomotives, WRM seems to be concentrating on electric traction which leads me to suspect that they would be cool to any co-location with GGRM. And, considering what happened in Niles Canyon, could you blame them?

From the NWPRRHS facebook closed group page: "While not exactly an NWP story, but it was announced yesterday that the Golden Gate Railroad museum will relocate to Schellville in the near future. These are the people who own and operate the 2472, a ex-SP P-8 pacific (NWP content: The SP owned the NWP.) While this is supposed to be a temporary arrangement, I understand that they are looking to acquire property "between Healdsburg and Schellville"."

I believe some of this is out of service though passable now, so if they wanted to run excursions it would need ties etc.