The Western Pacific Railroad Museum
The Western Pacific Railroad Museum at Portola is the largest and most complete collection in North America dedicated to telling the story of one railroad, and also one of the few places where you can experience railroad history in a truly hands-on way. Sit at the controls of the world’s largest diesel locomotive. Climb aboard passenger cars from the California Zephyr, one of the nation’s most famous passenger trains. And you can even take the throttle of a real railroad locomotive in the oldest engineer experience program in the US.
Our museum is a great family destination. We highly encourage our visitors to climb aboard our equipment to get a real feel for what Railroading is all about. It is this “hands-on” philosophy that makes us a popular family destination for folks of all ages. Located at the top of Northern California’s Feather River Canyon, the museum is only a 45 minute drive from Reno, Nevada, and just under 3 hours from Sacramento and the Central Valley. Admission to the museum is free (although a donation is very much appreciated), and five dollars gets you an all day pass on our train rides which run on the weekends from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Museum hours are from 10am to 5pm and we feature a well stocked gift shop to purchase cold drinks, snacks, and railroad memorabilia. When visiting, please don’t forget to sign our guestbook!
The Western Pacific Railroad Museum (WPRM) in Portola, California, formerly known as the Portola Railroad Museum before January 1, 2006 (2006-01-01), is a heritage railroad that preserves and operates historic American railroad equipment. The museum’s mission is to preserve the history of the Western Pacific Railroad and is operated by the Feather River Rail Society (reporting mark FRRX)[1], founded in 1983.It is located at a former Western Pacific locomotive facility, adjacent to the Union Pacific’s former Western Pacific mainline through the Feather River Canyon.
Museum collection
The museum holds in its collection thirty-three diesel locomotives, one electric locomotive, one steam locomotive(under restoration and on display), eighteen passenger cars (including four from the famous California Zephyr train), numerous freight and maintenance cars and sixteen cabooses.They offer excursions and a “Run A Locomotive” program during the summer.The WPRM has one of the larger collections of early diesel era locomotives and freight cars in North America. The museum is often considered to have one of the most complete and historic collections of equipment and materials from a single railroad family. The WPRM is a “hands-on” museum that allows visitors to board and explore locomotives and cars in their collection.
Among the significant pieces in the WPRM collection are Western Pacific 805-A, an FP7 model passenger locomotive that pulled the California Zephyr; Southern Pacific Railroad’s (SP) number 4450, nicknamed “Huff”, an EMD SD9 diesel locomotive; WP 2001, the first GP20 model locomotive (an early turbocharged diesel); WP 501, an early switch engine and the first diesel purchased by the Western Pacific; Western Pacific 0-6-0 steam locomotive 165, an oil burning switch engine built by ALCO in 1919; WP 37, a 200 ton rail-mounted crane, two track clearing snowplows (one wedge type and one rotary); and several rare, early 20th Century freight cars. Also located at the site are the Western Pacific Hospital, built in 1914 and one of the few remaining railroad hospitals (although it is unrestored), the Portola Diesel Shop built in 1953, and an interlocking tower from Oakland, California, currently stored unrebuilt. The WPRM prides itself on maintaining several of their road diesels in mainline operating condition and is well-known for making occasional movements on Class I railroads using their own historic motive power.
In 2009, chartered train from Amtrak Oakland, California travelled to the museum consisting of a standard P42DC, and well known California Zephyr private cars Silver Lariat, Silver Rapids, and Silver Solarium. The train spent the weekend in Portola celebrating the 100th anniversary of Western Pacific.