making sense of Folsom part 1

Folsom was the center of CP operations in the late 1800's. There were yard facilities, warehouses for CP freight transferred to horse drawn wagons bound for towns farther up the hill. There were repair shops for both cars and locomotives.

Type 22 station sitting at the center of the action
Photo Tom Ebert

Another shot of yard switcher 1307 working a cut
of  PFE's now iced and ready for delivery up the hill
Photo Tom Ebert

Eventually this was sold off to the Southern Pacific which moved its operation center to Sacramento.  I had planned for Folsom to contain a yard with trackage into town. It seemed ludicrous not have a yard for the Placerville Branch, where trains could be built and broken down. The yard at Folsom then is a work of fiction, based on the ancient yard of the Central Pacific. It was created so that I could fill a yard master position and provides a pivot point for all trains coming and leaving the Placerville Branch. The  point to point design of the Placerville Branch has Folsom being the western end of the modeled portion of the layout and Camino at the eastern terminus. There was a small turntable built by the CP at the original Folsom yard. Today its been unearthed, preserved and is part of a park just below Sutter Street. The Folsom wye came later when it was found that the 85' McKeen passenger car would not fit. So a wye was built so all power, no matter the size could turn at Folsom. Trains entered Folsom WB or EB ran down the wye and perform switching duties as needed, The cars going west could be left on the wye  be picked up  later by trains headed back down the hill. SP did not take anything unnecessarily up the 2% grade to  Placerville . Set outs up hill, pick ups down hill was the rule .It wasn't too long, probably in the late 40's that one train a day handled traffic on the branch save for the fruit rush where a 2-8-0 or two would handle extra traffic as needed. More next time

Switcher 0-8-8 performs switching duties east of Folsom Station
Photo by Tom Ebert

Pulling cars for Earl fruit at Folsom Photo Tom Ebert