Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: Syd Whittle
Taken: April 26, 2009
Caption: Central Pacific Coach 12
Additional Description: Railroad car on display at the depot - The Calistoga Wine Shop
This passenger coach was built in 1866 for the just-organized Central Pacific Railroad by the Harlan & Hollisworth Company of Wilmington, Delaware and shipped around Cape Horn by steamer to Sacramento. The car was set on the Central Pacific’s rails in Sacramento where it assisted in construction of the railroad eastward until it met the westward building Union Pacific Railroad at the historic Golden Spike Ceremony in Promotory, Utah on May 10, 1869. The great Transcontinental Railroad was completed causing accelerated western expansion of America and the settlement of the west.

Coach 12 was retired from active passenger service in 1905 after more than a million miles of travel and placed in railroad maintenance service. In 1926 it was permantly retired and placed without its wheels in the Stockton Railroad Yard as an employee storage building. It was obtained just prior to its planned demise by Calistoga Depot Association in 1977 and was brought to Calistoga where it was restored to its 1880’s state in 1978 – its 112th year.
From sign mounted on front of rail car.
Submitted: May 3, 2009, by Syd Whittle of Mesa, Arizona.
Database Locator Identification Number: p61751
File Size: 1.999 Megabytes

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