Steam & Excursion > This Railroad Had A Simple Mission And Performed It Well!

In 1878 when the founders of the Sierra Nevada Wood & Lumber Company decided to build a mill and a town at the site now known as Hobart Mills, they had to find a way to get their lumber to market.  They had decided that a narrow gauge logging railroad was the most economical means to get the logs from the stump their mill, but they still had to get the milled lumber to the Southern Pacific some 8 miles away at Truckee, California.  Their solution was the Hobart Southern Railroad.

The Hobart Southern was built standard gauge to eliminate the need to transfer the lumber from narrow gauge cars to standard gauge box cars.  This left the SNW&L with 2 railroads with 2 different gauges.  The Hobart Southern was guaranteed to last as long as the mill at Hobart Estates was in operation.

In June, 1935, Doug Richter visited Truckee and found Hobart Southern 2-6-2 #8 getting her train ready to head back to Hobart Mills.  She is a very trim 1907 product of the Baldwin Locomotive Works.  Unfortunately, the very next year, 1936, would see her out of a job when the mill at Hobart closed down for good.

#8 would live on in the timber industry when she was sold in 1937 to the Clover Valley Lumber Co. of Loyalton, California.  She would serve that line until it too closed in 1957.  She would then be donated to the Feather River Shortline group out of Quincy, California who still owns her today.

After pending a few years operating at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum at Portola, California, #8 went to the Virginia & Truckee RR and operated out of Virginia City, Nevada.  Today she is stored on private property at Moundhouse, Nevada waiting to see where she can operated again.

Martin



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/20 04:02 by LoggerHogger.

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Here is a map showing the Hobart Southern in its entirety.  It is extracted from the 1940 Truckee quadrangle, which reflects a cultural revision of 1932.

 

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One slight correction, Hobart Mills was 8-miles from Truckee, not 38-miles.

One of my favorite steam engines.  First one I ever got to work on.

Thanks for posting!

I have posted this before, but here is my photo from April 19, 1987 showing FRSL 8 being put away in the Portola Diesel Shop after its first day under steam at the RR Museum.

Z

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