Trolley Thursday 7/22/21 - The Visalia Electric Railroad

The Central Valley is often not known for being the most interesting place to be in California. If you ever find yourself driving through, you probably are on the fastest way to the Bay Area or the State Capitol, or you're heading east into the Sierra Nevada Mountains to enjoy the beautiful national parks. However, if you ever find yourself going through Tulare County either towards Fresno, Bakersfield, or Sequoia National Forest, pause first in the town of Visalia and look around you. Before the roar of the Tulare Thunderbowl and before Highway 99 was even thought of, there was once a small electric railway that held much promise for its parent company, Southern Pacific (SP), but various factors led to its early demise and its continued existence as a name on a General Electric 44 Tonner diesel locomotive. On today's Trolley Thursday (still on Friday?), let's peel back the citrus skin of the Visalia Electric Railway and savor the juices of its short-lived history.

Railroads to the Other Orange Empire...

Southern Pacific's Tulare Depot, 1914.
(Tulare County Library)

Like many towns in the Central Valley, the reigning railway was the Southern Pacific (SP). When it first connected to the small farming town of Visalia in 1872, the then-Central Pacific built southbound from Fresno in an attempt to reach Los Angeles as part of its "Sunset" route from San Francisco. In 1874, the competing Visalia Railroad Company (VRC) tested the CP's dominance by constructing a seven-mile spur to Goshen (west of Visalia) in 1874. After a period of local competition, the VRC extended its tracks southeast out of Visalia to Exeter to connect to the SP's East Side line by November 29, 1898. A year later, the line from Goshen to Exeter via Visalia was annexed by leased to the SP.

Ben M. Maddox, Booster of Tulare County.
(Huntington Library)

As the two steam railways vied for competition in Visalia, a local newspaper editor and booster began cooking up plans to fling the local farm town into the future. As editor of the Visalia Daily times, Ben M. Maddox began promoting the Mt. Whitney Power Company in July 1881, figuring that getting a stable source of electricity into the town would help it grow. The power company had recently dammed part of the Kaweah River, fifteen miles northeast of Visalia, and by 1891, Maddox had another idea for the town's power: instead of providing too much electrical power for one small town, why not have an electric railway to go with it? When the dam began operating in June 1899, Maddox felt his idea had enough merit to draw investors from around the Central Valley and further pushed for an electric railway.

Flinging Visalia into the Future

Newspaper art of the Kaweah River hydroelectric dam.
(The Good Life)

News of the "Tulare Trolley" soon reached John Hays Hammond, president of the Mount Whitney Power Company, and Albert G. Wishon, an electric railway and utilities booster from Fresno. Hammond and Maddox knew each other well, as Hammond tapped Maddox to promote his power company, while Wishon was brought on as he was known for forming and being the general manager of the Fresno Traction Company (FTC). Wishon and Hammond proposed a railroad running 30 miles from Visalia to Three Rivers in the east, where the railway ran along the Kaweah River and past Lake Kaweah, into the foothills of what is now Sequoia National Park. On April 22, 1904, the Visalia Electric Railroad Company (VER) was organized in Exeter to undertake this massive project.

A section of map from a 1928 USGS topographical study, 
showing the VER's Lemon Cove terminal along the Kaweah River.
(United States Geological Survey)

Construction continues on the new
Visalia Electric Railroad near Exeter, year unknown.
(My Old Tulare County Pics)

Construction was made easy thanks to the existing Goshen-Visalia-Exeter line, which SP allowed to be electrified up until the junction. Groundbreaking at Exeter took place on Valentine's Day, 1905, between Exeter and Lemon Cove, a distance of ten miles. Elderly team locomotives from the 1870s and 1880s were the first VER trains to operate as they assisted construction crews with heavy haulage and local services by July 1, 1906, and wires soon went up between Visalia and Lime Kiln (now Lemon Cove, I think) by February 22, 1908. The operations center was at Exeter Junction, where the offices, main substation, carbarn, and railway yard were located. Interestingly, the electrical infrastructure used 15-hertz, 3,300 Volt AC power for their interurban cars instead of the normal 600V, 1200V, or even 1500V DC. It was thought that, with SP as the VER's parent, they wanted to test more effective methods of conveying power across line without the need for multiple substations.

A Visalia Electric Railroad ticket, 1916.
(Tulare County Library)

"We Don't Take Kindly to Interurbans 'Round These Parts"

A horse-drawn street sprinkler eyes
interurban car No. 202 with suspicion, 1908.
(My Old Tulare County Pics)

The line's trial trip was on March 1, 1908, a "soft opening" if you will, and the Daily Visalia Delta noted that "the whir of the electric trolley sounds like music to the Visalia Man who is interested in public progress." Unfortunately, a lot of the local Visalians did not agree with this sentiment as after the line opened on the morning of March 3, 1908, there was already an incident. Mrs. J.W. Clark was crossing the line at Oak and Garden, just outside the Visalia depot, on a horse and buggy and did not notice the silent train speeding towards her. Moving quickly, she got the buggy away enough from the train so she, her passenger, and her horses were ok, but the train still ripped a wheel off her buggy. Blame was later put on the motorman who gave the excuse that he failed to ring the bell as "the motor glided along to noiselessly". The officials and company employees aboard the train were not impressed.

The SP/VER depot at Exeter, circa 1909, with combination car No. 101.
(My Old Tulare County Pics)

Two days later, when the line officially opened to the public, another incident happened almost immediately before the ribbons were cut and the brass band played on. On the night of March 5, SP mechanic Arthur Farley noticed that the overhead wire near the depot had snapped off and lay exposed upon the street. Farley alerted night watchman W.H. Anderson, who guarded the hazard until Mt. Whitney power linemen could repair the split. When dawn broke on March 5, 1908, the harried railroad opened to the public and it was smooth sailing out to Lake Kaweah, or so people thought. In 1909, a rather intoxicated young man named Leon Charilla boarded the train in Visalia. The conductor on board did not realized until they hit the town's Eastern border that Charilla did not have a ticket. After being ejected at the eastern city limits, Charilla suddenly produced a pistol from his pocket and shot at the train as it departed. Thankfully, no-one was injured and Charilla later spent 15 days in the county jail for "disturbing the peace". 

The VER depot at Lemon Cove, circa 1910, with No. 101 again.
(My Old Tulare County Pics)

Three years after the line opened, in August 1911, David M. Scott became the first known fatality on the VER. Normally a conductor, Scott was working that day as a brakeman on a passenger train near Lemon Cove. For some unknown reason, instead of walking through the train, he walked atop the train and ended up having to crawl through one of the pantographs on a motor car as it was still touching the wire. Scott was electrocuted after getting tangled in the pantograph and died immediately after getting shocked by 3,300 volts AC. 

Visalia Electric No. A1, as built in 1907, photographed in 1920.
(Tulare County Library)

In 1913, motorman Harvey Long was left near-crippled after touching the fusebox in electric locomotive No. 601 by mistake. Long was left with a crippled right-hand after spending three months recuperating and attempted to sue the VER, but lost after he was found by a jury guilty of "negligent operation of the car..." To all concerned, it seemed SP's high-voltage prototype was more fit for an electric chair than an electric streetcar.

Notable Rolling Stock

Visalia Electric Railway passenger motor no. 201 poses with a steel trailer (possibly 203) for a
company picnic train bound for Terminal Beach, circa 1913.
(Terry L. Ommen)

Visalia Electric Railway Combine No. 101 poses for its
official company photograph, with a man clearly testing
his luck sitting on the roof like that.
(San Francisco Public Library)

Besides the three steam locomotives originally used in the line's construction, the railroad housed two passenger-only motor cars, two combination cars, two unpowered trailers, and one 47-ton Baldwin-Westinghouse electric locomotive. The passenger cars were built by the American Car & Foundry of St. Charles, Missouri, in 1908 and featured pantographs on the motor cars. Looking like swanky Niles Car Co. products, the motors (combinations No. 101 and 102 and passenger cars Nos. 201 and 202) and trailers (301 and 302) featured classy curved ends, "steam railroad" clerestory roofs, and arched half-windows down the sides, with a handsome orange-and-silver paint scheme. Inside, they received cloth change-over seats and carved-wood lined interior décor, arch-windowed clerestory windows just above, and toilet sections lit by stained-glass frosted oval windows. The combinations came in handy sending local produce traffic to Exeter Junction, and some of the longest trains on the line were the company picnics to Terminus Beach. At its peak in 1912, the VER operated 23 daily trains through Exeter Junction.

VER No. 201 chills in the Exeter Carhouse with combine No. 102, circa 1910s.
(Michael J. Semas)

A later elevation from the Magna Collection of VER No. 103.
(Ira L. Swett)

One year later, in 1913, Visalia Electric ordered their first steel passenger cars from an unlikely source: the Moran Shipbuilding Company of Seattle. Combination No. 103 and Coach No. 203 radically differed from their wooden shedmates, featuring squared-off windows and strong arched roofs that looked quite contemporary. In an attempt to ingratiate himself with SP top brass, the general manager of the VER at the time thought it would be funny and generous to pay the Moran Company in local sacks of potatoes rather than money to both boost the local economy and share the bounty of the Central Valley. Upon hearing of the "novel agreement" to boost Visalia's reputation as an agricultural capital of California, SP promptly fired the general manager and replaced him. The two steel cars worked for the VER until 1919, when another SP interurban holding (Pacific Electric) purchased the misfit cars with the intention of using them in general passenger service. 

SFNC Nos. 61 (right) and 60 (rear) in Napa Valley service.
(Ira L. Swett)

Unfortunately, the PE found both cars extensively problematic as both were built to work under AC and converting them was too high a cost. Despite lettering them in the roster as No. 1364 (ex-combine No. 103) and No. 1045 (ex-coach No. 202), PE leapt on a chance to sell the lot after another AC-system line, the San Francisco, Napa & Calistoga (SFNC) for way more than what the larger interurban paid for them. Thus, the two cars became SFNC Nos. 60 and 61, respectively, in 1919 with No. 60 being demotored and used as a trailer, later being lost in a carbarn fire in Napa on January 22, 1932. No. 61 was eventually sent for scrap when the SFNV ended operation on September 12, 1937.

A later elevation from the Magna Collection of PE No. 1045 and 1046, as logged by the Torrance Shops.
(Ira L. Swett)

PE No. 1045 or 1046 is sandwiched in a 3-car train at San Pedro, 1921.
(Craig Rasmussen, Southern California Railway Museum)

PE No. 1046 (ex-VER 301) being used as a
cabin in Crestline, CA, 1970s.
(Jeffrey J. Moreau, SCRM)

PE later bought two wooden cars from the VER in 1919 after selling the original steel cars. Wooden trailers Nos. 301 and 302 arrived at Torrance Shops to be used as trailer cars behind their "Ten"-class interurban cars, but strangely enough they were stripped of any train controls and only used in the middle. Neither car was used much while in service on the PE other than holiday traffic, and their usual haunts were the Macy Street Yards in Alhambra. In 1934, the cars were sold to private owners. No. 1045 was used for a California "Honeymoon Hotel" suite until 1959, when it was saved by the Orange Empire Traction Company (now the Southern California Railway Museum or SCRM) and moved to Perris. No. 1046 was used as a cabin in Crestline California until just after 1974, at which point the SCRM also saved it. Both are now in the back of Barn 7, awaiting a future restoration.

PE No. 1046 on a work flatbed in the modern day,
awaiting the chance to become an interurban car again.
(SCRM)

Freight-Only Futures

Visalia Railroad No. 601 hustles three fruit reefers
at an unknown location.
(Louise A. Jackson)

Even in its earliest days, the biggest draw for the Visalia Electric was the local freight interchange. As the line spread out past its limits into Exeter and Strathmore, the local agricultural trade meant refrigerated cars full of fruits and vegetables were commonly switched at Exeter Junction. The line from Strathmore went unelectrified and paralleled the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (ATSF) line for some 16.4 miles, using two 64-ton GE model GES gas-electric locomotives (Nos. 401 and 402) for power. Electrified power was handled by a single Baldwin-Westinghouse boxcab freight locomotive, No. A1 (later No. 601), which was originally built in June 1907. Other fragmentary lines built to handle freight and passengers reached Porterville in 1916 (which later went to the ATSF in 1919), the Chowchilla Pacific Railway between Chowchilla and Dairyland (between Merced and Fresno), the San Jose District of the VER (which was originally a Peninsular Railway line between Bascome, Linda Vista, and Berryessa), and even a section of the Fresno Traction Company through a residential neighborhood.

The Chowchilla & Pacific Railway's Hall-Scott "doodlebug" gasoline railcar.
For some reason, it bothers me when people use the term "interurban" for gas railcar lines.
(Memorable Places Consulting)

New power takes over the carhouse as GE gas-electric
No. 401 poses with 44-tonners 502 (center) and 501 in 
this photo from after 1944.
(Frances Kirkman, Tulare County Library)

Due to floundering passenger numbers thanks to the automobile, the VER chose to end its passenger service prematurely on August 31, 1924, and the line between Visalia to Exeter was de-electrified by 1925. The various freight spurs listed above lasted until 1938, when all but the Chowchilla Pacific were abandoned and the Chowchilla was purchased by the SP. Electric operations came to an end soon after, as locomotive No. 601 was retired due to its increasing operating costs and the deterioration of the trolley wire. The wires soon were removed and salvaged for the war effort due to a copper shortage and two new GE 44-tonners were brought in to take over the freight switching, Nos. 501 and 502. These locomotives were also the last to wear the famous "Visalia Electric" name, albeit with the customary SP tiger stripe scheme. 

An SP SW900 is seen rounding the bend near Exeter on
May 14, 1986. It is four years until the last train.
(Tulare County Library)

An abandoned Visalia Electric trestle in Elderwood, CA
frames the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
(Marsha Ingrao)

By this point, however, freight traffic was at a steady decline on the VER due to the rise of produce trucks and SP losing interest in the railroad. Bit by bit, the VER was abandoned and torn up over the next few decades, with the Strathmore line fully abandoned by 1973. Due to weird labor laws that also affected the Springfield Terminal Railway in Springfield, Vermont, the VER had a fixed labor cost and that meant the existing low-frequency customers finally left the railway for better service. Because of this, the VER was also one of the few non-union railway companies left operating with a "guaranteed annual wage". Nevertheless, SP finally closed the book on the Visalia Electric on September 6, 1990, with one last run helmed by bloody-nosed EMD GP9 diesels. Abandonment was requested on August 7, 1992, and finally given later that same year. Today, not much of the original Visalia Electric Railway is left apart from old right-of-ways and roadbeds.

Forever in Diesel Dreams

Visalia Electric No. 502, as retired in "Bloody Nose" livery.
(Unknown Author)

No. 502 after a fresh repaint at the Western Railway Museum,
taking Salt Lake & Utah No. 751 for an excursion
out to Rio Vista Junction, November 23, 1986.
(Roger Puta)

Besides VER No. 301 and 302 at the SCRM, the only other piece of equipment left behind by the Visalia Electric is GE 44-tonner No. 502 at the Western Railway Museum of Rio Vista, CA. Originally built by GE in 1945, the currently-operable locomotive was chosen to work for the VER due to a 1937 engineman labor contract that dictated any locomotive below 90,000lbs (or 49 tons) could operate without a fireman. Its sister, No. 501, was deemed unnecessary by the general manager of the VER and leased it to SP in 1946. 502 became the only VER equipment left operating, following retirement of electric No. 601, until the little diesel was retired in 1971. After a short stint of storage in Bakersfield, it was finally donated to the Western Railway Museum in 1973, where it continues to not only wear its "Visalia Electric" name proudly, but now works hauling old interurban cars up and down the yard and the main line. Despite being a diesel, I as a motorman am proud to call this little critter an "honorary electric". 

The Southern Pacific Depot today, now an upscale fine-dining restaurant.
(OpenTable)

A partial photo of the historical plaque outside of The Depot.
(Visalia Times-Delta)

Another remnant of the Visalia Electric Railroad can be found around its namesake town. The second Southern Pacific depot, which was constructed in 1916 a couple blocks from the original, is now a fine-dining restaurant called "The Southern Pacific Depot". After spending a period of time unused after SP stopped running both electric and steam passenger service through the town, it was purchased and renovated by new owners in 1971 who have restored the old building to its former glory. With its restoration that incorporated the original stained glass windows, molded ceilings, and the lobby chandelier, the restaurant has even won awards for its meticulous attention to detail. Maybe I should try eating there one day... 

The restored interior of the
Southern Pacific Depot, 2011.
Click here for a larger photo.
(Ron Holman)

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included a Visalia Lifestyle article by Terry L. Ommen about the beginning of the Visalia Electric Railway, "California's Electric Railways" by Harre W. Demoro, "Interurbans Special No. 36 - Interurban and Deluxe Cars" and "Interurbans Special No. 37 -  Combos, Locomotives & Non Revenue Cars" by Ira L. Swett, the archives of the Western Railway Museum and the archives of the Southern California Railway Museum, as well as the credits listed below each photo. I also highly recommend the book "The Visalia Electric Railway: Southern Pacific's Orange Grove Route" by Phillips C. Kauke, which I did not consult for this article but it probably tells this story a lot better than I could! The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found under “Motorman Reymond’s Railroad Gif Carhouse”. On Tuesday, we reach the bottom of the Valley as we look at the Bakersfield and Kern County Railway! For now, you can follow myself or my editor on Twitter, buy a shirt or sticker from our Redbubble stand, or purchase my editor's self-developed board game! It's like Ticket to Ride, but cooler! (and you get to support him through it!) Until next time, ride safe!