RDC SP-10 began the long journey from the Galveston Railroad Museum back to its Northern California stomping grounds in late November to become part of a yet-to-be built complex for the Southern Pacific Railroad History Center.
The history center intends to cosmetically restore the Budd Car and make it the centerpiece of a new exhibit hall and archive space it intends to build in Rockland, Calif., by 2019. The group estimates that the car’s restoration will cost $85,000.
This RDC started work in 1954 on the low-traffic route between Oakland and Sacramento, Calif. In 1959, SP transferred the car to subsidiary Northwestern Pacific, where it served there until Amtrak assumed passenger duties in 1971.
“The [history center] is very proud to have saved SP-10 as such an important and unique piece of Southern Pacific’s legacy,” says Scott Inman, the history center’s vice president. “With the help of the railfan community, we hope to display the Budd Car as the centerpiece of an exhibit gallery dedicated to the corporation that built the west.”
SP-10 had been a feature of the Galveston museum since 1983 and was occasionally used for excursion services until mechanical issues took it out of service in the 2000s. Before the museum could complete a round of extensive repairs that began in 2007, Hurricane Ike flooded the museum grounds with more than eight feet of water and rendered the Budd Car inoperable.
Galveston Railroad Museum Executive Director Morris Gould said that after the hurricane, the museum lacked the funds to restore the Budd to operating condition and worried that visitors might injure themselves on pieces of the car.
The Galveston group sold SP-10 to the history center for the price of scrap. Gould said that several groups in addition to the California group had inquired about the car, but the cost of moving it off the grounds prevented anyone else from following through with the sale. Class I railroads helped the California group to overcome that hurdle with both BNSF Railway and Union Pacific donating the cost of moving the motor car over their rails.
The SP-10 is scheduled to arrive on a donated patch of land on the Sierra Northern Railway in Woodland, Calif., during the first week of December. Inman says it will remain there for the next several years until the heritage center is complete. In the meantime, the group will hold public work sessions on selected Saturdays.
More information is available on the history center’s Facebook page.
Flatlanders from Wisconsin can’t read maps. Rocklin was an important point during the construction of the Central Pacific.
Do you mean Rocklin, CA? Couldn’t find a “Rockland.”
Low traffic route between Oakland and Sacramento ? My how times have changed.
The museum will be in Rocklin, California, not Rockland.