Labor Day Weekend , September 2013, Niles Canyon Railway and the Train Museum offered their bi-annual Steam Train Day, a rare opportunity to not only see a vintage steam engine and train in action but to ride it. We also visited the historic burg of Niles (near Fremont , CA ) ,where Charlie Chaplain had his start in silent movies back in the 1920s.
Halflway through our ride, we got to step out of the train while the diesel engine was replaced by the steam engine (steam engines can only go one direction, ie pulling the train). We got to get a nice ‘shot’ of the old steamer picking us up for the ride back to the old station (above)
Some diesel engines in ‘dry dock’ . Diesel engines replaced the steam engines in the 1940s and 1950s.
steam engines.
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| One of the train cars we rode in, an art deco passenger car as it appeared in the 1940s and 1950s when part of the popular California railway system |
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| Old fire engine in old fire station (now a museum) pretty much as they were in the early 1900s |
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| A former speakeasy, Florence, as it was then and now as a restaurant and biker bar. |
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| Famed silent film and movie star, Charlie Chaplain, who filmed some of his early movies in Niles – still welcomes visitors to town |
