Good evening, all.

Wooden boxcar 2 of the Petaluma & Santa Rosa Railway has been added to the equipment collection of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Historical Society. Boxcar 2 dates to the formation of the P&SR in 1904. It was built by the Holman Car Company of San Francisco. As was common at the time, P&SR boxcars were even-numbered while the flatcars were odd-numbered. Therefore No. 2 is the railroad’s first boxcar. A photo of sister car No. 8 is included by Fred Stindt in his books about the NWP and its subsidiary P&SR.

In the 1930’s the car was retired, stripped of its brake gear, trucks and couplers, and sold offline. It was moved by truck about 25 miles west of Petaluma to Bodega Bay, California, where it was set on blocks and converted into a small house. The house has been unoccupied for many years.

In 2001 a Society member spotted the car peeking through the overgrown bushes. Our letters to the landowner went unanswered until 18 days ago when she contacted our Society and asked if we were still interested. The structure had been condemned by the County building inspector and ordered demolished. We could have the boxcar if the structure was removed to the satisfaction of the building inspector. The Society’s Board of Directors voted to accept the donation offer and started making the arrangements.

The public agency staffers we contacted were invariably helpful. We even were given 60 days to remove the car instead of the usual 30 days. As it worked out, our usual house-moving crew was available for this weekend. Only nine hours of work was needed on Friday for the crew to cut the car out of the vegetation and enclosing structure and lift it off the support blocks. Saturday morning was spent loading the boxcar onto the flatbed truck and cleaning the yard of debris. The car arrived in Petaluma that afternoon.

Boxcar 2 came back to Petaluma nearly 75 years after it left. It now sits on blocks next to P&SR Caboose 1 in the yard of the De Carli Trolley Museum, a few yards from the railroad’s still-existing main line on Copeland Street. Video of the car’s rescue and move can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrSPyE7W ... e=youtu.be


Mike Manson

NWPRRHS

Thank you for sharing that video. Very interesting and enjoyable.

How wonderful to see the original painted logo still intact, not to mention the car's original painted number. That is so neat!

Great find!

Looks like it will need some TLC to get it back to looking like a box car. But that should be easier than having to restore a passenger car.

I was remembering this Petaluma & Santa Rosa (P&SR) box car tonight, so found the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Historical Society website to learn more. Looks like a very interesting collection of cars (to say the least). Some challenging and worthwhile projects there.

A few cars that caught my attention -

Central Pacific coach #29 (built in 1869!):
http://www.nwprrhs.org/coach-29-pictures.html

Petaluma & Santa Rosa caboose #1:
http://www.nwprrhs.org/cab-1-picts.html

I think I'll have to send in a small donation tomorrow - but to which project? I can't decide.

Hi,

The video is now long gone. Did anyone save any screen shots of the boxcar?

I'm going through a Petaluma & Santa Rosa phase and hoping to convert some Labelle O scale kits into facsimiles of their equipment.

I'm especially interested in the logo because in my memory it was the curved cross logo.

Thanks,

Charles

Looks like the video is still up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOVJ2-cDds4&t=17s

I suspect there was a YouTube glitch that is fixed now. I tried that link earlier and got an error message, but it's available as I post this message.

Brian Helfrich

Thanks folks. It was unavailable when I tried.

The old Red Ball kits may be a useful guide after all.

Charles

What has become of boxcar 2?

It is surprisingly difficult to get information from the NWPRHS on their facebook page, they used to post regular updates on their equipment under restoration (which includes an original Central Pacific/ later NWP wood coach and an original NWP-built wood baggage car, both repurposed as houses/sheds later) but not anymore, and if you ask for updates they will tell you to join the NWPRHS and you can see it in their newsletter. The last reference I found to the boxcar was from 2017, when a set of appropriate trucks had been found and negotiations had ensued. https://www.facebook.com/groups/434483003360304

P&SR Boxcar 2 is still at the work yard at 110 Baylis Street in Petaluma. It awaits volunteers to proceed with restoration.

Central Pacific Coach 29 and NWP Baggage Car are actively being restored.

Volunteers are welcome. We had a work day yesterday (March 22). Our work days are scheduled every two weeks. The next work day will be April 5.