B&V Motive Power

The Bakersfield & Ventura had but a handful of rolling stock during its short life.

According to Joseph Maguire, “for the big opening” on July 4, 1905, and for a time thereafter, B&V leased two locomotives from the Southern Pacific. He adds that these were “Atlantic-type locomotives of the 1300 series.” This seems doubtful, for a few reasons. First, the Atlantic (4-4-2) was classically a high-wheeled, high-speed, mainline passenger engine that would be poorly suited to construction work, or even hauling passengers on an urban run of only a few miles. Second, while I’m not an expert on SP motive power, as far as I can determine, the SP got its first Atlantics in 1902, and it seems to me they would have been too busy hauling premiere trains to be leased out to an obscure short line. Finally, none of the SP’s Atlantics were numbered in the 1300 series.

I could be wrong. Maybe the B&V leased the big, fancy road engines for the grand opening to show off how prosperous it was, and then took a while to return them. But the discrepancy with road numbers troubles me. I wonder if, in fact, they were smaller, older engines, and Maguire just got the type wrong. SP did have some 4-4-0 Eight Wheelers (also called "Americans") numbered in the 1300s, and at least a few were still around by 1905. Did Maguire misread the wheel arrangement and supply the type name Atlantic?

By August 1905, the B&V had the first motive power of its very own, a little four-wheel, gas-powered speeder from Sheffield Motor Company, numbered 001. It could reportedly carry up to six passengers. It was joined in 1908 by a more-proper passenger conveyance, an open-side, trolley-style gas-powered unit, also from Sheffield, number 002, which is shown below.




The first and only steam locomotive to carry the Bakersfield and Ventura name arrived in March 1906. Number 1 was a 2-6-0 or Mogul wheel arrangement, and was built by Pittsburg Locomotive Works. It's pictured at the top of my blog. To give credit, I scanned this photo from Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg's Mixed Train Daily. The photo is credited to H.L. Kelso. Beebe's caption reads: "The Ventura County Railway, running five miles between Oxnard and Port Hueneme, California, and possessing but three locomotives, including the beautiful Mogul that is its One-Spot, contrived to gross a million and a quarter dollars during the war year of 1944." (No one ever accused Beebe of writing a simple sentence.) This seems to imply that the locomotive remained in service through the war. I haven't yet found anything about its final disposition. The Orange Empire Railroad Museum says on its Web site that all VCRy steam locomotives except No. 2 (see below) were scrapped in the 1950's; presumably, that included No. 1.

That’s the extent of the Bakersfield & Ventura motive power roster. It is interesting to note that while the B&V was promoted, right up to the end, as an electric railway, no overhead wire was ever strung, and the few pieces of motive power the road used or owned were steam or gasoline-powered.

After American Sugar Beet bought the assets and reorganized the B&V as the Ventura County Railway in 1911, the new owners added a Hall-Scott Motor Car, number 003, to haul passengers between Oxnard and Hueneme. While the Hall-Scott car was impressive, there wasn’t much passenger traffic, and 003 was sometimes kept busy switching cars at the sugar beet mill and the SP interchange. The Hall-Scott car shown here is actually No. 22 of the Nevada Northern, but VCRy 003 would have been very similar.


One other noteworthy VCRy locomotive is steam engine Number 2. VCRy bought the 1922 Baldwin 2-6-2 second hand from the Cascade Timber Company in Washington State, to help handle heavy freight traffic to the Navy base at Port Hueneme during World War II. The engine was rebuilt after the war and continued to see occasional service as late as the early 1960’s. In 1973 it was donated to the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, California, where it has been beautifully maintained and continues to haul excursion trains to this day.
Some oddities: Photos in the Oxard Public Library collection show a rail bus that is identified as operating on the VCRy in the 1920s. They also have photos of various locomotives switching the sugar beet mill; some of these photos are identified (by the library) as being of the VCRy. There is a 4-4-0, a 4-8-0, and a small saddletank switcher, probably an 0-4-0. Road names are not visible in any of these photos, so I can't say for sure if they are VCRy engines or even if they are operating on VCRy track.
In later years, VCRy operated a Whitcomb diesel and a couple of GE 70-tonners.
Aside from that, the B&V doesn't seem to have owned much in the way of rolling stock. An inventory from the time of the lawsuit between the railroad and Eban Smith's heirs in 1906 lists Locomotive No. 1, gas car 001, and 65 beet cars. An inventory in 1908, when the road was reorganized, lists 40 gondolas, which are probably the beet cars.
The Pacific Southwest Railway Museum Association has two former VCRy wood flat cars at their museum in Campo, California on the old San Diego & Arizona Eastern line. The PSRMA beileves these originally had wooden sides, which were removed in later years, and they are somewhat speculatively listed as having been built in 1910. If correct, they could be former beet gondolas. That would make them the last surviving B&V rolling stock. You can see a photo and PSRMA's description here.
Sources
Beebe, Lucius and Charles Clegg, Mixed Training Daily. Berkeley: Howell-North, 1961.
Maguire, Joseph F. “The Ventura County Railway,” Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly, 6:3, May 1961.

Orange Empire Railroad Museum. “Ventura County Railway No. 2.” Web.
Oxnard Public Library. Local History Resources, Digital Heritage Room. http://www.oxnard.org/localhistory.html
Pacific Southwest Railway Museum Association. "Pacific Southwest Railway Museum Association #1316 & #1330."