South Pacific Coast 47

This car was built by Carter Brothers at their Newark shop in 1881. While it looks like a passenger car, it actually served as a caboose and was equipped with link and pin couplers instead of the Miller Couplers used on passenger cars. Like many other SPC cars, number 47 headed to the Nevada & California Railway in 1907 (as car 455) after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and the standard gauging of the South Pacific Coast. The car was set aside at Keeler, California in 1915.

This is the car who's rediscovery started our organization. The carbody made its way back to Newark in 1975 after not-then museum members discovered it in a field. After many years outside, the body is severly degraged in structure, and plans to archive and restore the car continue to evolve as technology improves. The car is currently stored in our carbarn while we survey and assess what comes next.

An extenstive historical record and restoration was recently published by our historian, John Hall. It is available with a $100 or more doantion to our museum.