Smoke, Soot, and Steam: Galt’s Railroad History 1869-1960

By Michael L. Greer

Use this vivid, well-documented book as a guide to walk down Main Street and experience the sensations of smoke, soot, and steam from 1869 to 1957 in a Central California community as it grew from a berg to an incorporated city and found its spot in the history of the golden state of California.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728315003

Michael L. Greer

Michael Greer was born and raised within two blocks of the rail yards in Galt and still resides there with his wife Linda. He is a Life Member of the Galt Area Historical Society, holds a Master of Social Work degree and is retired from the State of California as a Social Worker. He has spent 30 years as a docent at the California State Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento and is currently working in the old Southern Pacific shops complex restoring railroad signals. This is his first book.

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© 2019 Michael L. Greer. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/11/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-1502-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-1501-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-1500-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019908710

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 The Big Boom

2 A Little Girl’s Memories

3 Home Sweet Home

4 The Railyards

5 A New Era of Expansion

6 Amador Branch Line

7 It Was A Hot Day

8 All–Aboard

9 The End of An Era

Bibliography

Endnotes

Appendix I

Appendix II

Appendix III

Appendix IV

Appendix V

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Yonder down the track through the smoke and steam there’s a train going my way, and when I take Ol’ 53’ I don’t know when I’ll be back.

M. L. Greer

Foreword

Daddy What’s A Train?

In 1973, folk musician Utah Phillips wrote this song—Daddy, What’s a Train. In it, he imagined a future in which young people were so disconnected from our railroad heritage that they would not know what a train was. Phillips was not too far off. In the space of just one generation, the golden age of rail travel has tarnished and turned sepia. Although the song’s lament might some day come true at last, we are still fundamentally a railroad people. Freight still rolls, railroad planning still dictates the special orientation of our towns, and railroad terms and metaphors still permeate our language in matters practical and romantic. We are always getting derailed, or off track, or else we are trying to build up a full head of steam for some task or another.

Thanks to places like the California State Railroad Museum, little kids may ask their moms and dads what’s a train? but they will not have to wonder for very long. The museum enshrines, everlasting, the objects and stories of our railroad past, present, and future.

Smoke, Soot and Steam, serves the same function. The strengths of this volume are many. It is rich in its description — encyclopedic, really — of Galt’s railroad past, and not just in its technical description of machinery and hardware, but in detailing the lives lived in and around the railroad. In telling these stories, Mr. Greer succeeds in connecting the thread of memory between the residents of Galt’s past with its current inhabitants. In this respect, he succeeds in not only filling in an important chapter of the Sacramento region’s history, but also in doing that which all historians should: helping lend clarity to our daily lives. The traces of our railroad heritage are all around us and for those living in Galt and environs, this book serves as a tool for divination of what was and what may be. On each page, Mr. Greer demonstrates that, although perhaps faded, railroading has left a still legible mark on Galt and the rest of the valley. Our lives, after all, especially in the West, are made of railroad stories.

Ty Oliver Smith, Ph.D.

Museum Director

California State Railroad Museum and Old Sacramento State Historic Park, Sacramento, California, 22 March 2018

Preface

I was born in 1943 and was raised within 1 ½ blocks of the rail yards. Working at the depot was my first job at age 8 and I spent many hours around the area focusing my young imagination on trans, their smells and sounds and their crews. That was a long time ago and as I get older my memory and thoughts to share with others is fading. So it is with these memories, recollections and hard data which I share a bygone era of smoke, soot and steam.

I vividly remember Ed Greeney, the last station agent assigned to Galt who hired me at age 8 as a sweeper and his assistant agent. He taught me railroad lingo and introduced me to railroad men who worked around the yards and trains. They took me on many daylong cab rides in the locomotives and showed me their unique operations. I was a veteran railroader by the time I was thirteen.

Railroads have had a profound impact on the history and growth of the United States since the first iron rails were imported from Europe to New England. Railroads have generated social, economic, commercial and enhanced land use throughout the country; California has been a clear benefactor. They have been partially responsible, one way or the other, for the Westward Movement, the shipment of fresh produce and various farm products throughout the country and the construction of the massive infrastructure we know today. Railroads were very instrumental in fighting two major wars and feeding and transporting millions of citizens for decades.

Starting