Grizzly Flats Railroad
Coordinates: 34°07′07″N 118°04′29″W / 34.118714°N 118.074664°W
The Grizzly Flats Railroad was a 500-foot (152 m) long, 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge railroad in San Gabriel, California, owned by Disney animator Ward Kimball. It was the first full-size backyard railroad in the United States and was operated from 1942 to 2006.
In 1938, Ward Kimball, a lifelong railroad fan, decided to purchase the last remaining passenger coach from the Carson and Colorado Railroad. The intention was to use the coach to house the Kimball's growing collection of railroadiana and model trains, but this plan was quickly changed. When the Kimballs learned that the Nevada Central Railroad had a vintage 1881 Baldwin 2-6-0 steam locomotive for sale (the Sidney Dillon), arrangements were made to purchase it. The old coach would then be used for its original purpose, as a passenger car. The dilapidated railroad equipment was soon resting on a short section of track among the Kimball's orange trees. Ward and Betty decided to name their new empire the Grizzly Flats Railroad, and heralded it as the "Scenic Wonder of the West". Friends and family helped to restore the locomotive to look like a flashy 1860s locomotive. Ward renamed it Emma Nevada, after a famous opera star of the late 1800s. Coach No. 5 was colorfully painted and its Carson & Colorado letterboard was changed to Grizzly Flats Railroad. This work took place on weekends through 1942, at which point, the Emma Nevada was first fired-up. The following years saw addition of a cattle car, a caboose and a Baldwin 0-4-2T plantation locomotive that once ran in Hawaii, which the Kimballs named Chloe after their youngest daughter. Ward ceased steaming the Emma Nevada in 1951 when it developed boiler problems (it only ran again once in 1985, during a race with Tom Scherman's Iron Man). In 1956, Kimball began to run the newly restored Chloe. The neighbors were probably relieved, as the wood-burning Chloe produced cleaner smoke in smaller quantities than the larger coal-burning Emma Nevada. Over the years, Ward added the Grizzly Flats Depot (a set piece built for the 1949 Disney film, So Dear to My Heart, and given to Kimball by Disney) and some other out-buildings to house his burgeoning toy train and railroadiana collection.
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