One of the things I really miss about Southern California is spending the day hanging around the Orange County Railroad Museum (formally the Orange Empire Railroad Museum). I was looking through an old folder of photographs I took a few years back and stumbled upon a large set of images I took around the museum. The first images were of the museum's operational steam locomotive, former Ventura County Railway 2-6-2 No.2. I thought it would be nice to share these with fellow railfans.
Information about the locomotive is kinda scarce bout I was able to learn that it was built in 1922 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works for the Cascade Timber Company. The Ventura County Railway purchased the locomotive in 1943. The unit was sold twice to private citizens in the 1960s before the museum purchased it in 1972.
The Ventura County Railway
Before Los Angeles port facilities were developed, Port Hueneme seemed a viable competitor; and VCRR's earliest predecessor, the Bakersfield and Ventura Railway, was incorporated in February 1903 to build a railroad from Port Hueneme to Bakersfield via Santa Paula and Piru Canyon. Construction began in 1907 with a 5.5-mile (8.9 km) main line from Port Hueneme up C Street in Oxnard, plus a 3.5-mile (5.6 km) westerly branch to Patterson Ranch and a 7.5-mile (12.1 km) easterly branch to DeBo, Petit, and Round Mountain (near the Camarillo State Hospital). It was reorganized as the Bakersfield and Ventura Railroad in June 1908 with the Oxnard line moved to A street. A railway turntable was constructed at the intersection of First and A Streets in Oxnard where gas motor cars were turned on their six to eight daily round trips until passenger service was abandoned in January 1927.
The Steam Era
The property was again sold in June 1911 to the Ventura County Railway, which had been incorporated in May in the interests of the American Beet Sugar Company (renamed American Crystal Sugar Company in 1934), which owned a beet sugar factory at Oxnard. The railroad brought carloads of beets to the factory from surrounding farms; and Port Hueneme packing houses provided 1200 carloads of lemons, 200 carloads of beans, and 75 carloads of box boards annually. World War II development of the Ventura County naval base enabled the line to avoid abandonment as trucks took over shipment of agricultural commodities.
The Ventura County Railway No. 2 is the Museum’s operating steam engine. During special events and select weekends throughout the year, you can ride a train behind the VC2 and experience the excitement of an operating steam locomotive.
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