Rolling Rock at Jacobson Interpretive Center Preview

Virginia & Truckee Nos. 18 and 22 have played the parts of Central Pacific No. 60 Jupiter and Union Pacific No. 119 (which met at Promontory in 1869) on three different occasions: In 1939 in the gold spike scene of the motion picture Union Pacific, in 1969 on the Union Pacific Railroad’s “Golden Spike Centennial” train, and from 1970 through 1979 at the Golden Spike National Historic Site at Promontory, Utah. Today they are again arranged as they were as the “golden spike” locomotives, though they are not decorated as the CP and UP engines.

While other locomotives have played the roles of the Promontory engines on various occasions, none has played it more often than these.

Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia built the Inyo for the Virginia & Truckee Railroad in 1875, the year of peak Comstock production. It was used initially as a relief engine, but by the 1890s it was regularly pulling the road’s premier Virginia City express train, and it saw extensive use during the Tonopah mining boom of the early twentieth century. It was thoroughly rebuilt in 1903 and converted to burn oil in 1910. Electric lights were added in 1917.

Automobiles, trucks, and modern highways absorbed the business of the railroad, and with revenues falling, in 1924 the V&T consolidated their separate Virginia City passenger and freight trains into a single daily mixed train, and No. 22 was retired. After sitting idle for over a decade, the locomotive was sold to Paramount Pictures in 1937 for use in High, Wide and Handsome. It was the first piece of V&T equipment to go to Hollywood. It appeared in 33 feature movies and television shows. Its last performance in steam was for The Wild, Wild West television show in 1965.

No. 22 was returned to Carson City in 1978, and in 1983 it was restored to its 1893 appearance. The restored Inyo has been featured at events and fairs at Las Vegas, Sacramento, and Vancouver, BC, and is operated at the museum on special occasions.

No. 18 Dayton was purchased from the Central Pacific Railroad in 1873 to fill a pressing need for motive power on the Virginia & Truckee. It and sister No. 17 Columbus were the most powerful engines on the V&T in the 19th century; they could pull eight loaded freight cars up to Virginia City, while the other locomotives could only pull seven. Starting in 1879, a snowplow was regularly mounted on the Dayton in the winter.

No. 18 pulled the first passenger train over the Minden extension in 1906. It was converted to burn oil in 1908, while No. 17 was retired in 1911. Electric lights were applied to No. 18 in 1917. The reduction of train service to Virginia City in 1924 resulted in No. 18’s virtual retirement, but it remained the snowplow engine through 1937. It was last steamed on the V&T in January 1938.

Paramount Pictures bought the old locomotive in September 1938 for use in the movie Union Pacific. The following year it piloted Paramount’s Union Pacific promotional train all the way to Boston and New York City. Over the next three decades, the Dayton was filmed for some 17 motion pictures and, later, television shows. It was last steamed in 1957 for the filming of Last Stagecoach West.

No. 18 was returned to Carson City in 1978 and was restored in 1983 to its 1882 appearance. It is not operational.

The Virginia & Truckee bought five “combination” box cars from the Central Pacific Railroad in 1872. They were assigned the odd numbers 1001-1009 (V&T flat cars were given even numbers). Their original yellow color was replaced with mineral red-brown paint in the 1880s. All received Sams “automatic” link-pin couplers and Westinghouse automatic air brakes during the winter of 1897-98 and Tower knuckle couplers in early 1902. These cars were almost exclusively used on-line, rather than being interchanged.

Four of these cars were retired at the end of 1916, de-trucked, and placed as sheds at various stations. No. 1005 was used at Scales, located between Mound House and Gold Hill. All of these were put back on wheels and sold to Paramount Pictures in 1938. The fifth CP-built box car, used as a diner-bunk car for the railroad’s maintenance crew, was also rented to Paramount and survived on the V&T into the 1940s.

No. 1005 was damaged in filming Union Pacific but was subsequently rebuilt. It was returned to Carson City in 1972 – among the first of the surviving V&T rolling stock to come home. Of the three CP-built box cars to survive in any form, it is the only one restored and is also the only one in Nevada.

Built in Virginia City in November, 1869 as Virginia City & Truckee No. 1, this was the first passenger car on the railroad. It ran in the first regular train between Carson City and Virginia City, in January 1870. Originally the car had side doors and was painted maroon. It was renumbered No. 8 in 1872.

The car was used primarily as a caboose on the end of mixed trains until supplanted by newer cars in 1873. After that, it was used so little that it did not receive air brakes and Sams couplers until 1901, several years after the other cars were equipped. It was finally given knuckle couplers just the next year.

In 1915 No. 8 was fitted up as an office for Interstate Commerce Commission valuation engineers. It became Cook & Diner No. 8 for the bridge and tunnel crew in 1923, at which time the side doors were removed. By 1942 it was serving as the living quarters of the Carson City section man.

With resumption of Nevada Day celebrations following World War II, the V&T ran a special train for the Lions’ Clubs. As the last of the historic rolling stock still owned by the railroad, old No. 8 was refurbished as “Club Coach” Julia Bullette, featuring a bar and a few card tables. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayor studio bought the car in August 1947 along with cars 19 and 20. This was the last sale of V&T equipment before the line was abandoned in 1950. It was returned to Carson City in 1988.

V&T cabooses Nos. 9 and 10 were built by the Kimball Manufacturing Company of San Francisco in 1873. Like coaches Nos. 7 and 8, which they replaced, Nos. 9 and 10 were used primarily at the end of freight trains for passengers. All of these cars initially had a small baggage section, a tiny toilet room, and a stand-up desk for the conductor.

In the early years the cars saw almost continuous use, as the V&T often ran more than 30 trains a day. About 1875, No. 9 was made into a simple coach by removing the side doors and extending the passenger compartment the length of the car, though still with longitudinal benches. The car continued in regular use until the 1890s. After that it was only used occasionally. By 1891 the car was reconfigured into a picnic and excursion car, with its stove removed and a bench down the middle of the floor.

Coach No. 9 was converted into a track-crew bunk car in 1908, with the addition of a small clerestory for ventilation. In 1913 it was rebuilt into a conventional cupola caboose. By the 1930s it was no longer in service.

In 1938 No. 9 was sold to Paramount Pictures for the film Union Pacific. A Paramount model of No. 9 as it appeared in the motion picture is exhibited elsewhere. No. 9 was returned to Carson City and in 1983 restored to its 1873 appearance.

V&T coach No. 17 started life in 1868 as Charles Crocker’s business car on the Central Pacific Railroad. Leland Stanford took it to Promontory Summit in May 1869 for the “wedding of the rails,” on which trip it carried the gold and silver spikes. Subsequently, as a private car, it carried John Mackey and family to the U. S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and Nevada Senator William Sharon to Washington, D. C. But changes in style and technology soon made the car obsolete, and it became a coach on the Virginia & Truckee in 1878, carrying passengers between Reno and the Comstock. In 1938, just short of its seventieth birthday, Coach No. 17 was acquired by Twentieth Century-Fox for Jesse James. Fortunately, the studio made little use of it, and after fifty years in California, it was returned to Carson City in 1988.

Modifications were made to the car over the years to keep up with changing styles and advancing technology. While still on the CPRR, Crocker’s car was given air brakes, Miller couplers, and more stylish windows. It was soon too cramped to serve as a private car, and the V&T converted it to a coach when it was only a decade old. By the time it was thirty years old, it had new trucks, better air brakes, and more fashionable lamps and clearstory. Knuckle couplers were installed in 1902. Before it was forty, its siding, floor, end platforms, and seats had been replaced, and electric lamps were installed.

The old coach exhibits the evidence of all these changes and repairs. Only the truss rods, most of the Douglas fir underframe, the redwood clearstory, and wall trusses, and the interior paneling are original to 1868. The underframe, clearstory, and wall trusses are severely worn and damaged. The wall truss is a rare example of pre-1870 framing. Also evident are modifications to the needle beams (to accommodate the brakes), clearstory, and sill tie-rods (to modernize the car), which together weakened the car. The woodpecker holes date from the 1960s and 70s.

Today the car is supported on jacks to relieve the frame of its strain, while tie-rods hold the walls from spreading and the roof from falling. New platform sills were installed in 2018 to provide a secure mounting for the handrails and steps.

The “rail car” was specifically designed to deliver new rails to the end of track during initial construction of a railroad. It was often pulled by horses hitched to the side-ring. The rollers at the ends of its cross-bunks allow the rails to be unloaded more-or-less to gauge. When emptied, a half-dozen men tipped it off the rails onto its side, allowing the next loaded rail car to pass forward. The empty car was then pulled back for another load.

The Museum’s rail car is built utilizing the iron parts of a V&T rail car sold to Paramount Pictures in 1938, but it is restored to the design of Central Pacific rail cars. It is possible that its iron parts originated on the rail cars that the V&T bought from the CPRR in 1869, immediately following the completion of the Pacific Railroad.

George S. Sheffield, a cabinet maker living near Three Rivers, Michigan, tired of walking to and from work along the Michigan Central railroad track and in 1877 designed and built a three-wheeled track car similar to this. It is powered by a combination of leg and arm motions. Because Sheffield had no right to use the track, he traveled only in the dark. However, one night he came across a broken rail, and with his lantern flagged down a train, preventing a disaster. This, of course, brought his homemade track car to the railroad’s attention. However, in recognition of his heroic service, Sheffield was allowed to continue traveling on the company’s track. Moreover, the company asked Sheffield to build another car for their use. In response to the Michigan Central’s inquiry, Sheffield patented his design in 1879 and established the George S. Sheffield Co. to manufacture his product.

This velocipede is a reconstruction utilizing the steel and iron parts from a burned velocipede carcass found along the Western Pacific Railroad right-of-way between Reno and Reno Junction.