I struggled with whether or not I should travel up to the Bay Area last weekend, given my uncertain employment and my certain commitment to be writing a book.
But I hadn't taken a trip since Memorial Day weekend, and my feet were getting itchy.
Turns out, it was the perfect time to get away from Los Angeles—which was in the throes of a 110-degree heatwave—and embrace the cooler environs up north.
One of the draws for my trip was the annual Doors Open California weekend, hosted by California Preservation Foundation. And one of the places the program was giving special access to was the Redwood Valley Railway in Tilden Regional Park, just east of Berkeley.
It never really occurred to me to even try to ride any train other than a streetcar while in the San Francisco area—but of course SF was a keystone region in the history of railroading.
Of course, no one uses this railroad for commuting—it's just a nice, scenic, 1.25-mile ride through a park that used to be an anti-aircraft installation for the Army (which operated from 1952 to 1959).
And it's been popular enough with locals and visitors alike to have been operating for more than 70 years now.
The trains are all miniature reproductions of real-life, full-sized rolling stock from the 1870s to the 1930s—but running on a 15-inch gauge track, which is about three and a half feet narrower than standard gauge.
Most of the passenger cars are the open-top, gondola-style boxes that were built in the 1960s and remodeled in the 1990s.
You can also sit in a boxcar...
...or the caboose, which is based on one from the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad and contains all the standard appointments of a full-sized caboose.
For my ride, we were pulled by the No. 5 steam locomotive, a.k.a. "Fern" (they're all named after types of trees, like Laurel and Sequoia)—a 4-4-0 configuration built in 1987 right here at the Redwood Valley Shops and restored in 2014.
In order to reproduce the experience of a lumber/logging railroad (something like the Sugar Pine Railroad), hundreds of coast redwoods (600? 800? depends on who you ask) were brought in to replace the eucalyptus that had been planted here.
You're not exactly in the woods the whole time...
...but those passages through the groves, with heavenly light streaming through the steam released by the locomotive...
...well, they feel pretty magical.
And like any good train ride, there are some natural and man-made attractions along the way, like a tree tunnel...
...and a wooden rail tunnel.
This was all the creation of a backyard railroader named Erich Thomsen, who'd worked as an engineer for Western Pacific Railroad. When he outgrew the space at his parents' farm in Mountain View, he shifted his efforts to Tilden Park.
In 1952, it was known as the Tilden South Gate and Pacific Railway—and it was even smaller (with 12-gauge track) and shorter (running only three quarters of a mile).
When Thomsen died in 1995, he left the Redwood Valley Railway to his daughters, who took over the business.
It seems to be thriving, as there were long lines and every train ride was full of passengers.
As part of Doors Open California, I got special access to the roundhouse where volunteers continue to work on trains...
...another caboose...
...and the No. 7 "Oak" Prairie class, built in 2005...
...and restored in 2017.
The volunteers who work there know all about the wheel configurations and stylistic choices that help them determine which era the rolling stock was meant to reflect—but most of that stuff is way over my head.
Personally, I really just like riding trains—in all different styles and destinations.
And this one was an absolute delight.
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