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The legacy of the Clover Valley Lumber Company No. 4 continues to roll on.
Niles Canyon Railway is commemorating the 100th birthday of the restored steam train, which is still in operation today, at a special celebration this Saturday at the Sunol railroad station on Kilkare Road.
“The locomotive has served most of its life working in the state of California and has been part of the museum’s collection since 1973; just over one half of its life after being built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, Penn., in March of 1924,” Christopher Hauf, marketing manager for the railway, said in a press release.
The special event will include a ceremony from 10:30-11:30 a.m. Saturday (March 2) with speeches spotlighting the Clover Valley Lumber No. 4 and demonstrations of the train in action. Then from 12-3:30 p.m., the nonprofit will offer short public rides on its passenger cars from Sunol to the museum’s Brightside yard and back – on a first-come, first-served basis with limited capacity.
Niles Canyon Railway, which holds the distinction of being “the only museum and tourist railroad that runs on the best-preserved alignment of the Transcontinental Railroad,” is then scheduled to offer a special addition of its familiar weekend route on Sunday (March 3), a pair of roundtrips between the Sunol and Niles stations on railcars pulled by the No. 4 steam train.
The nonprofit operates the hour-and-a-half ride on its historic trains twice a day (10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. departures) on the second and third weekends of each month between February and October. Typically the Saturday excursions are diesel-powered trains while the Sundays are steam-powered, with passengers riding in a mix of open-air cars and enclosed coaches, according to Hauf.
Tickets are currently on sale for regular rides through June. For availability, go to www.ncry.org.
Saturday’s birthday event and locomotive jaunts are offered for free, as space allows, but the nonprofit is encouraging attendees to consider donating to the ongoing maintenance and restoration efforts of its steam department, Hauf said. The group is in the middle of a multi-year effort to refurbish its Southern Pacific Railroad No. 1744 steam locomotive, which was originally built in 1901.
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