Nevada County Narrow-Gauge Railroad of California [1874-1942] Page

       The Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad was chartered in March 1874; Congress granted the N.C.N.G. permission to build across public lands. The 22½-mile Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad was constructed in a record fifteen months by New York civil engineer John Flint Kidder [1830-1901]. (One internet tally states that the N.C.N.G.R.R. mainline was 22.41 miles (36km) of track, plus 4.12 miles (6.63km) in spurs and sidings.) Kidder was offered the job of superintendent, and became president of the company in 1884.
       When John Kidder died in 1901, his widow took over daily operation of the railroad, becoming the first female railroad president in the world. She converted the locomotives to oil fuel and oversaw construction of a cutoff that included a 172-foot-high steel bridge across the Bear River, a project that cost $132,285. Sarah Kidder sold her interest in the N.C.N.G.R.R. in 1913 and retired to San Francisco.
       In 1926, a local group led by Earl Taylor purchased the N.C.N.G. railroad for one dollar. Due to dwindling traffic, passenger service was suspended in 1938. The Grass Valley Depot and the Kidder Mansion suffered extensive fire damage in 1940. With the outbreak of World War II, the rail line was sold as scrap for $251,000; the locomotives were either scrapped or sold to other narrow-gauge railroads. The last train ran over the N.C.N.G. on 29 May 1942.

Of the many N.C.N.G. stories reported in Gerald Best's 1965 book and elsewhere, several are quite special.

The only way for a circus to get to Grass Valley or Nevada City was by transferring at Colfax from the standard-gauge circus train to the much-smaller rolling stock of the narrow-gauge. In September 1893, the Sells-Renfrow Circus came to the Twin Cities. At one point, as the tiny train crept around a horseshoe curve, the elephants (or horses) decided to rest against the side of their boxcar. They picked the wrong side and the boxcar tipped over, pulling most of the train with it. Two people died; it took two weeks to repair the two overturned locomotives. After that, circuses set up in Colfax. • photograph (in a new window) • 9/2010 newspaper article

When the N.C.N.G.'s 100-foot-high wooden Bear River Trestle burned down in 18??, the story goes that within a few hours John Kidder sent telegrams placing rush orders specifying exactly the wood and iron needed for a replacement, and that reconstruction work began the next day.

At one time, the N.C.N.G. railroad was notable for having the tallest railroad bridge in California, the Bear River Bridge, built of steel in 1908 by Sarah Kidder. When the line was scrapped at the beginning of World War II, the Bear River Bridge was left standing. By the 1960s, Eisenhower's Interstate Highway Program reached Nevada County, and the best highway route to Grass Valley and Nevada City naturally followed the rail route surveyed by John Kidder. The Bear River Bridge would be replaced by the new highway, so the bridge was blown up {see short video} – but it did not fall and had to be pulled over with steel cables and Caterpillar tractors!

John Flint Kidder [1830-1901]
Kidder married Sarah A. Clark of Ohio in 1874. He and his bride built a 3-story mansion on the edge of the Grass Valley railyard in 1875;
they lived there until his death of diabetes in 1901.

Sarah A. Kidder [??-19??]
Sarah Kidder sold her interests in the railroad in 1913 and retired to San Francisco.

The official N.C.N.G. stations or water stops were (moving northward): Colfax and Oilville in Placer County. The original line ran on the east side of the Bear River to Long Ravine and for several miles to You Bet, then crossed on the wooden Bear River Trestle and wound south to Shebleys and then west before reaching Colemans. The 1908 realignment crossed the Bear River sooner (and higher) on a steel bridge, then wound northward to Chicago Park Depot and Colemans. The original route then proceeded north and west to Blatton, Buena Vista, Peardale, Union Hill, Grass Valley, Glenbrook, Town Talk Tunnel, Gold Flat, and Nevada City.

State Highway 174 – the 'Colfax Highway' – follows the same route: from Colfax to Shady Glen, across the Bear River and northward to Chicago Park,
Peardale, Kress Summit, Union Hill, and Grass Valley. A 6-mile freeway portion of State Highway 49 (partly merging with State Highway 20)
runs from south of Grass Valley to north of Nevada City.

Colfax, California
144 miles from San Francisco, 54 miles from Sacramento; interchange with the standard-gauge Central Pacific, later with the Southern Pacific.

Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum [est. 1983] in Nevada City
official museum website • entry at Wikipedia
original 1875 narrow-gauge Baldwin 2-6-0 steam locomotive #5 'Tahoe' is in regular use at N.C.N.G.R.R. Museum
1927 narrow-gauge Plymouth ex-WSLC 8-ton gas-powered 0-4-0 locomotive #1
1943 narrow-gauge Plymouth ex-Kansas, Arizona 5-ton gas-powered 0-4-0 locomotive #10
2006 narrow-gauge homebuilt railcar #12 'Sarah Kidder' is in regular use at N.C.N.G.R.R. Museum
2009 narrow-gauge homebuilt 0-4-0T steam locomotive #13 is in regular use at N.C.N.G.R.R. Museum

year	whyte	name/number	history	disposition/status
1875	ng Baldwin 4-4-0	#1 'Grass Valley'	purchased new; in service 1875–1933	retired in 1933; scrapped in 1936
1875	ng Baldwin 2-6-0	#2 'Nevada'	purchased new; in service 1875–1933	retired & scrapped in 1933
1877	ng Baldwin 4-4-0	#3	purchased new; in service 1877–1915	destroyed by building fire; scrapped in 1926; used as staitonary boiler in Virginia City 1926-1975; boiler returned in 1997
1875	ng Porter-Bell 0-6-0	#4 'Santa Cruz'	ex-Carson Tahoe Lumber & Fluming Company; in service 1899–1916	scrapped in 1916
1875	ng Baldwin 2-6-0	#5 'Tahoe'	ex-Carson Tahoe Lumber & Fluming Company; in service 1899–1940; sold to Hollywood for movies; leased from Universal Studios in 1985	in regular use at NCNGRR Museum
1883	ng New York Works 2-6-0	#6	in service 1915–1926	scrapped in 1926
1881	ng Baldwin 4-4-0	#7	ex-S.P.N.G. #4 'Churchill'; in service 1929–1934	scrapped in 1937; tender used on #8; cab & parts used on #5 circa 1940
1882	ng Baldwin 2-8-0	#8	ex-Denver & Rio Grande RR #283; in service 1933–1942	sold in 1942 to Dulien Steel Products, then to Portland Cement/U.S. Gypsum; retired & scrapped in 1948
1914	ng Baldwin 2-8-0	#9	ex-Nevada California Oregon Rwy #14; S.P.N.G. #1 1928-1933; N.C.N.G. service 1933–1942	sold to U.S. Navy, used in Hawaii 1942-1945; fate unknown
19??	ng Plymouth gas-powered 0-4-0	#10	in service only Jan-June 1936	wrecked in 1936; scrapped later
19??	ng Whitcomb gas-powered 0-4-0	#11	ex-Bates & Rogers Construction; in service 1936–1942	sold in 1942 to Dulien Steel Products; fate unknown
1875	ng Baldwin 2-6-0	'Glenbrook'	in service around Lake Tahoe 1875-1926; purchased in 1937 for parts for #5; never used	returned to Carson City in 1942; being restored at N.S.R.M.
1896	std-gauge 2-truck Heisler	no number	in service 1913-1914	sold in 1914 to Willamette Valley Lumber Co.; scrapped in 1930
1910	std-gauge 2-truck Climax	no number	in service 1913-1923	sold in 1923 to Grant-Friant Rock & Gravel Co.; fate after 1930s unknown

caboose #1 (NCNG's only caboose)

box car 4, 24 ft
box car 50, 26 ft
box car 100, 30 ft as rebuilt
box car #126
box car #138, ex-F&CC, NCO
box car #142 is on stationary display at N.C.N.G.R.R. Museum

click here for photograph (in a new window)

flatcar 21, 25 ft
flatcars 87 & 109 ex-PVC
flatcars 151, 167, 401, ex-NCO
flatcar 413, 28 ft, ex-SP
flatcar 421, 30 ft, ex-SP
gondola 15, 25 ft
gondolas 105 & 111
Shell Oil tank A-10, ex-NCO
tank car 143, 28 ft
tank Car 1002, 30 ft
rotary snowplow, ex-Swayne Lumber Co.
'bucker' snowplow

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	"Nevada County Narrow Gauge" [1965] by Gerald M. Best Heimburger House 11x8½ hardcover [10/98] for $41.95 Howell-North Books hardcover [1/65] out of print/used
	"Never Come, Never Go: The Story of Nevada County's Narrow-Gauge Railroad" [1986] by Robert M. Wyckoff Nevada County Historical Society pb [1/86] out of print/used
	"A Tale of Two Cities and A Train: The Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad, Nevada County, California, 1874-1942" [1987] by Juanita Kennedy Browne Nevada County Historical Society pb [10/90] out of print/used Nevada County Historical Society hardcover [2/87] out of print/used

G.E. Nordell's California Railroads Pages Nevada County Narrow-Gauge Railroad[1874-1942]

G.E. Nordell's California Railroads Pages
Nevada County Narrow-Gauge Railroad
[1874-1942]