The Diamond and Caldor Railway was a

common carrier A common carrier in common law countries (corresponding to a public carrier in some civil law systems,Encyclopædia Britannica CD 2000 "Civil-law public carrier" from "carriage of goods" usually called simply a ''carrier'') is a person or compan ...

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

railroad operating in El Dorado County, California, in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. The 34-mile railroad was primarily a logging railroad but also operated some passenger service.

History

The railroad was built by the California Door Company which was founded in 1884 in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

. The company bought 30,000 acres of wooded land in El Dorado county in 1899 as a source of timber for their plant. They initially used oxen to haul felled trees to their sawmill on the

Cosumnes River The Cosumnes River is a river in northern California in the United States. It rises on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada and flows approximately into the Central Valley, emptying into the Mokelumne River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Del ...

. In 1901 they experimented with steam tractors for log haulage, but this was unsuccessful. In 1902, a steam-powered sawmill was constructed at Caldor, California and a planning mill 36 miles away at Diamond Springs on the Central Pacific Railroad. In late 1903, the company began construction of a narrow-gauge railroad to connect the two mills. The railroad was formally incorporated on 9 February 1904, and opened in 1905. It ran along the North Fork of the Cosumnes River. Operations continued until abandonment on April 10, 1953. The railroad primarily operated with Shay locomotives. The remaining Shays, with the exception of #4, were scrapped in 1953. Engine #4 was displayed at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds for several years and is now in the process of being restored by the El Dorado Western Railway Foundation. Until a fire destroyed the mill at Caldor in 1923, the line hauled rough-cut lumber from Caldor to the sash and door factory in Diamond Springs. After the company built a modern electric mill at Diamond Springs, the railroad hauled uncut logs from the woods to the new mill. Because the Diamond and Caldor was a common carrier, it had to comply with Interstate Commerce Commission regulations. The railroad failed to comply with the ICC requirement to have railroad cars equipped with air brakes and automatic couplers. The Diamond and Caldor, according to railroad historian Donald B. Robertson, may be the only western railroad to be put out of business due to those equipment requirements.

Locomotives

References

Defunct California railroads 3 ft gauge railways in the United States Narrow gauge railroads in California Logging railroads in the United States {{California-transport-stub

History

Locomotives

See also

References