A little over an hour east of San Diego lies the sleepy, little town of Campo and the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum.
The museum is only open on weekends, but museum President Stephen Hager and the museum’s conductor, Colin Atwood, were nice enough to give visitors a weekday tour.
Hager told KPBS all about the museum's 62-year-history.
“Our mission out here is to preserve and interpret railroads and railroad history in the Pacific Southwest of the United States, with a focus on railroads in San Diego County," Hager said.
There are a couple of buildings on the museum grounds, including the historic Campo railroad depot. During the interview with KPBS, Hager stood in front of a major piece of railroad history in the county.
“The technical term is an F-40 PHM-2C commuter locomotive," Hager said.
The F-40 PHM-2C powered Coaster commuter traveled between San Diego and Oceanside from 1995 until 2021. It’s unique among American-built locomotives.
“The North County Transit District, which operates the Coaster service, custom ordered this locomotive and four sister locomotives specifically for the commuter train service. There’s no other locomotives exactly like them ... " Hager said.
The Coaster locomotive takes its place among the museum’s extensive collection, everything from box cars to hand carts, passenger cars to cabooses. Many of them are parked outside — waiting for the day when funds are available to restore them. Hager said even the Coaster locomotive needs a little TLC.
But it’s inside the museum where the museum’s crown jewels are found.
“We have a lot of living history here in this museum that we love to share with everybody," said Museum Conductor Colin Atwood, as he walked into the museum building.
One piece of that living history is right through the door. It's a little, red fire engine built by Ford. But this fire engine runs on rails.
“It was able to get to places that your traditional fire truck couldn’t get to," Atwood said. "So, if there was a tunnel fire somewhere between wherever the road was and the next connecting road — (the fire truck) would be able to get in between to handle that fire. "
Visitors can see how railroads invented signaling technology, which was later adapted for automobiles.
And visitors can get up close and personal with Southern Pacific 2353, a huge oil-fired locomotive built in 1912. And there’s a Santa Fe Railway post office car. Visitors can walk through it and see how the country’s mail moved after the Pony Express galloped off into history.
“It’s always good to know where it is that you’ve come from as a country and where we have gone and where we’re going. So, this is a perfect place to come and actually look at living history," Atwood said.
Back to recent history and the Coaster locomotive: museum management had to work their way through four-and-a-half years of governmental, logistical and financial hurdles before the process of moving it to Campo could begin. That process wasn’t quick or easy.
Hager detailed the challenges of moving the big locomotive.
“Right now, we have no rail connection from the outside world here to Campo. So, the only option to get locomotives and cars here is to put them on a truck," Hager explained.
It started its journey on a train in Anaheim where the museum was storing it.
“(It) was taken out to La Mirada, got on a second train, which took it to Barstow, then got on a third train to San Diego and then finally one fourth train that brought it down to National City," Hager said.
From there, it was loaded onto two huge highway dollies and trucked out to the museum, a process that took about a month. But for Hager, Atwood and the rest of the volunteers who make this museum go — it was worth it.
