California Northern Railroad HO Scale Models

The California Northern Railroad began operations in 1993 as a Class III short-line carrier, initially formed to take over freight service on a collection of former Southern Pacific lines in northern and central California. The railroad operates under long-term trackage leases over routes that were once part of Southern Pacific's network, with its headquarters located in Woodland, California. At the time of its founding, the CFNR was owned by the Park-Sierra Rail Group, a short-line holding company controlled by David L. Parkinson of St. Helena, California, who also held ownership stakes in other regional carriers including the Arizona and California Railroad and the Puget Sound and Pacific Railroad. The railroad's original service territory was considerably more expansive than what it operates today, with trains running as far north as Willits, California, where the CFNR interchanged with the North Coast Railroad and the California Western Railroad. The railroad's route system reflects the complicated layering of California's nineteenth-century railroad construction history. The West Valley Line between Davis and Tehama was originally built in segments by the California Pacific Railroad and the Northern Railway, a Central Pacific subsidiary, between 1869 and 1882, with Southern Pacific eventually absorbing both predecessors between 1885 and 1888. The West Side Line between Tracy and Los Banos was constructed by Southern Pacific in 1891 and once formed part of a longer corridor running deep into the San Joaquin Valley. The Suisun/Fairfield to Schellville segment traces its origins to early Bay Area rail infrastructure, including portions of the original California Pacific Railroad mainline dating to 1867 and 1868. In 2002, Park-Sierra sold the California Northern Railroad to RailAmerica, a publicly traded short-line holding company that had assembled a large portfolio of regional and short-line railroads across North America. Under RailAmerica's ownership the CFNR continued to serve agricultural and food-processing customers throughout its territory, handling approximately 26,000 carloads of freight in 2008 alone, with commodities including tomatoes, grain, stone products, and other agricultural goods forming the backbone of its traffic base. The acquisition of RailAmerica by Genesee and Wyoming in December 2012 brought the California Northern into one of the largest short-line holding company systems in North America, where it remains today. Under Genesee and Wyoming ownership, the California Northern has continued to focus on serving the agricultural industries of northern California's Central Valley and surrounding regions, with interchange connections to Union Pacific Railroad at Davis, Suisun City, Tehama, and Tracy providing links to the national rail network. The railroad's current operations are somewhat reduced from its original 1993 footprint, with the northern extension to Willits no longer active and the primary operating territory centered on the West Valley and West Side lines. Beginning in 2009, the railroad undertook an initiative to modernize its locomotive fleet by introducing fuel-efficient genset locomotives manufactured by National Railway Equipment, with a substantial portion of the funding secured through an air quality grant program administered by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.