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The Napa Valley Wine Train

The Napa Valley Wine Train has become a very popular excursion since it began operations in 1989. The train itself is operated by the Napa Valley Railroad, which is a reborn railroad that dates as far back as 1864 and connected Calistoga and Vallejo, California, a distance of 42 miles. The purpose of the original railroad, just like the operation today, was to bring in tourists to the beautiful Napa Valley region (in this case to Calistoga, a resort city). Today, if you are vacationing or traveling through the famous vineyards of the Napa Valley you may want to consider stopping by and visiting this very posh tourist train, which spares no expense in the meal and the journey to make sure that you have the most enjoyable experience possible!

The Napa Valley Wine Train was initially started in 1987 by local preservationists and railroad enthusiasts among stiff opposition from local communities. After a lengthy court battle the railroad won out and was granted the right to operate the then ex-Southern Pacific trackage between Napa and St. Helena, California (the Southern Pacific came to own the original Napa Valley Railroad, later named the California Pacific Railroad, in 1889). While today’s Napa Valley Railroad does see sparse freight service to complement its popular passenger trains, there is talk that the NVRR may soon be hauling much more significant freight traffic making it a full-fledged freight railroad.

To give a brief history of the Southern Pacific system, much like the Pennsylvania Railroad was to the State of Pennsylvania so was the Southern Pacific to the State of California, an institutional icon. Also just like the Pennsy the Southern Pacific (also referred to affectionately as the “Espee” by railfans and historians after its SP reporting marks) has such a history that entire libraries of books could be written on the differing aspects of the railroad. The SP was by far our country’s single largest classic railroad (i.e., before the modern-day merger movement began in the 1950s), spanning over 15,000 miles and reaching from the stretches of northwest Oregon to southeast Louisiana!

For all of the railroad’s wealth and prosperity up to this time traffic pattern shifts and poor management would prove costly to the Southern Pacific. During the 1970s the lucrative automotive traffic and industrial base in San Francisco began to disappear. Where once the SP dispatched several trains in and out of the city daily, in just a few years much of this traffic had dried up as industry there closed it doors to either move elsewhere or take operations overseas.

It was also during this time that another rich source of traffic, produce, grown in the fertile valleys of California began to move their business to trucks. This was partly due to SP’s ever-worsening transit time for the delicate product, which must make it to market extremely quickly before it begins to rot. At one time the Southern Pacific had a sprawling network of branch lines and spurs that seemingly reached every field and farm in the region. However, by the 1970s and especially the 1980s these were either rusted over or pulled up as the business had disappeared.

Currently the Napa Valley Wine Train operates four Milwaukee Locomotive Works FPA-4 diesel locomotives (MLW was the American Locomotive Company’s Canadian division) plus one General Electric 65-tonner switcher. Entire fleet information can be found below:

· #52 – GE 65-tonner: Originally owned by the U.S. Navy.

· #70 – MLW FPA-4: Originally owned by the Canadian National and later VIA Rail.

· #71 – MLW FPA-4: Originally owned by the Canadian National and later VIA Rail.

· #72 – MLW FPA-4: Originally owned by the Canadian National and later VIA Rail.

· #73 – MLW FPA-4: Originally owned by the Canadian National and later VIA Rail.

Today, the Napa Valley Wine Train offers everything from dinners in dome cars and murder mystery specials to wine tours of the local area. Along with the trains’ former Milwaukee Road dome car it also features diner and lounge cars for the journey. To learn more about the fabulous dinners and wines served aboard the train please click here to open a menu in PDF (you will need Adobe Acrobat to open this file which you can download for free here if you do not already have the software). - Many thanks to the good folks of the Napa Valley Wine Train for providing the menu. - All in all, with regal interior designs using mahogany and other fine materials (not to mention a splendid matching paint scheme) a trip aboard the Napa Valley Wine Train is certainly a unique, memorable, and lasting experience not afforded by most other tourist trains. To learn more about everything the Napa Valley Wine Train has to offer please click here to visit their website.

For more information on tourist trains like the Napa Valley Wine Train you might want to consider the book Tourist Trains Guidebook from the editors of Kalmbach Publishing's Trains magazine. Given excellent reviews by readers this guidebook covers nearly all of the tourist railroads and museums (over 400) operating in the country in fine detail with accompanying reviews about each. So, if you’re interested in locating a tourist train or railroad near you, or simply want to know more about a particular one, you will certainly not be disappointed in Trains’ guidebook to tourist railroads and museums. In any event, if you're interested in perhaps purchasing this book please visit the link below which will take you to ordering information through Amazon.com, the trusted online shopping network.

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