Railtown Tracy

Tracy, California, is a town in San Joaquin County that was, and remains, a railroad junction between two different lines of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which is now part of the Union Pacific. It was originally founded in the 19th century as a stop on the Central Pacific Railroad.

To commemorate how important the railroad industry is to the town, Railtown Tracy is a proposed development in Tracy, CA that has 7 components, according to their web page, in order to honor Tracy's railroad heritage as one of California's rail centers for over a century:

The following information comes from the Railtown Tracy website.

Southern Pacific X4460 at Tracy, CA. 1958

"Creating and growing an active and passionate local railroad historical society interested in developing a railroad-themed historical district with vintage locomotives, passenger cars and freight cars, as well as related facilities for maintenance and administration."

"A downtown museum and visitor center with exhibits tracing the history of railroading in Tracy and the Central Valley."

Tracy, CA Southern Pacific Railroad Depot, 1912.

"A scale model railroad display mirroring rail activity in the area, along with railroad-related activities for kids of all ages, will also be a component of the visitor center."

"Weekend rail excursions from downtown Tracy on the former Southern Pacific right-of-way to Midway (via the Altamont branch) or the “Brewery” and “Holly Sugar” spurs in town — and perhaps along the Mococo line (to Brentwood), the Westside branch (via the California Northern to Los Banos) or the Banta-Lathrop line (via the Union Pacific) — using borrowed or leased power (perhaps from the California Northern, the California State Railroad Museum or other tourist railroads). Click here for a map of potential excursion routes."

Potential Train Routes from Tracy, CA

"An annual downtown Tracy Trainfest, attracting train enthusiasts from throughout the western United States, with vintage railroad equipment on display."

"An annual railroad movie festival at the Grand Theatre Center For The Arts, along with a railroad-themed art and photography competition."

"The potential of attracting railroad-themed businesses to the downtown area, including hobby shops, restaurants, antique stores, and other related enterprises. In addition, the boost in traffic through the Railroad Historical District, particularly on weekends, will increase the number of potential customers for existing restaurants, cafes, stores and shops."

Here's hoping that the project becomes a success in 2021 and beyond! Thanks as always for reading!


Location: Tracy, CA, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Choum Tunnel: The Monument to European Stupidity in Africa

Image
Scars of European colonization are located all across Africa, although some are more obscure and strange than others. With that in mind we come to the Choum Tunnel , built in Mauritania when it was controlled by the French. At first glance, it seems like an ordinary railway tunnel, however, one look at the local geography and you'll find yourself asking what its builders were possibly thinking with creating the project. Choum Tunnel in Mauritania. Unknown photographer. The Mauritania Railway was being built in the early 1960s, and was planned to connect Nouadhibou to Zouérat to exploit the iron ore reserves at Zouérat. That route still exists today in largely its original state, with the exception of the tunnel. Image: Ammar Hassan via Atlas Obscura The easiest route required running a short section of track through the then-Spanish controlled Western Sahara , but rather than pay Spain for the land and other concessions, the French engineers instead chose to tunnel under a hill sp
Read more

Railroad Vocabulary: A List of Words and Phrases Used in the Industry - Updated February 2024

Image
As somebody who enjoyed watching trains, but was not an employee of the railroad industry ( at least growing up ), when I would interact with railfans and historians, there was often a lot of technical jargon that applied only to the railroad industry thrown back and forth that made it difficult for a newcomer to understand what they were talking about. For example, what is a dinky? It's actually a passenger train. This non-inclusive language seems to keep the loop closed to members of the community, and to uncouple (no pun intended) that technical jargon and help make it easier for people to communicate with people in the industry, I am creating a list of railroad vocabulary that I'm hoping will make the industry more transparent.  BNSF 2361 . Image: Matt Flores While I ultimately believe that such technical jargon has no place outside of perhaps technical communications between employees, I know quite well that I alone am not going to stop people from communicating in a non-i
Read more

We asked ChatGPT to write an article on Abandoned Railroads - Here's the Result

Image
We live in an incredibly interesting age of information - made even more interesting by one of the most advanced chatbots that exist. Chatbots have been around for awhile now, but there are very few that have captured the amount of information and artificial intelligence that have been shown by ChatGPT . To demonstrate this, I asked it to write me an article on abandoned railroads with 1200 words in it. After this paragraph, you'll see what ChatGPT wrote. I will provide relevant links in its paragraphs and make any errors that I can see in brackets "[]". What I've noticed is that ChatGPT is great when it comes to general ideas about a particular historical topic, but largely gets facts, dates, and context wrong. Thus, we're still a little ways away from being taken over by computer overlords . Otherwise, thanks as always for reading my material, the rest is by guest blogger ChatGPT! Abandoned railroads are railways that are no longer in use or service. This can ha
Read more