SONOMA, Calif. — The Golden Gate Railroad Museum has cancelled scheduled Labor Day weekend excursions with Southern Pacific 4-6-2 No. 2472 — the last scheduled operation before the locomotive’s required 15-year boiler inspection — citing “unsafe bridge conditions” on trackage owned by commuter operator Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit.
In a news release on its website, the museum says SMART has identified two bridges which are structurally deficient on the planned excursion route on the former Northwestern Pacific between Schellville and the Napa River, and that it therefore could not allow the excursion trains to run.
“The Golden Gate Railroad Museum deeply regrets that these excursions cannot operate,” the museum says in its news release. “…As many of you know, Southern Pacific 2472 is nearing the end of its 15-year operating cycle. This was the last opportunity to show her off before the boiler expired. It is hard to say when 2472 will run again.”
The museum had planned four 90-minute round trips each day on Sept. 4-5. It is offering full ticket refunds and is offering ticket buyers a free one-year museum membership or a one-year extension of a current membership.
No. 2472, built by Baldwin in 1921, was housed at the Niles Canyon Railway in Sunol from 2006, when the Golden Gate museum had to vacate its home at the Hunters Point Naval Base in San Francisco, to 2017, when the museum moved to its current location in Sonoma [see “SP No. 2472, Golden Gate Railroad Museum collection to move,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 9, 2017].
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