Steam Engine Blueprints

Plans form to restore locomotive

Trains were once the lifeline in America, and the steam engine was the heart and soul.

One of those steamers, the 1919 Southern Pacific engine No. 2852, is one display at the Glenn County Fairgrounds in Orland.

Before its leisurely retirement in 1958, it pulled freight up and down California, made treks up the Sierra Nevada to Reno and traveled into the southwest.

No. 2852 sits next to a caboose, and the preserved depot.

Now a new chapter is being written in the story of one of No. 2852's companion engines, the 1904 Southern Pacific engine No. 2706.

The author of the tale is John Manley, 38, of San Bruno, and he is writing it in Colusa.

Manley, who was actually part of a team the helped clean up No. 2852, would love to add a caboose to his collection, but has not found one for the right price as of yet.

He is glad the county never agreed to sell or swap No. 2852 to the group he worked for at the time.

Manley is an engineer for Amtrak.

But his love affair with trains goes back to his earliest childhood.

"I don't know why," says Manley, scratching his head about an obsession that has gone well beyond working for several railroad companies, including Southern Pacific, to being involved in five restoration projects over the years.

"I have always been involved in railroading," said Manley, who grew up in San Bruno. His father was an electrician and had nothing to do with the railroads. He was told he had an uncle who had something to do with the railroads, but he is not even sure about that.

An example of Manley's restoration work can be found at the California State Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento, the No. 2467 steamer. He was part of the team that refurbished that piece specifically for display.

Now, however, Manley is embarking on a journey that started in his dreams — one in which he would own his own locomotive, restore it back to life and then find a place where it can run the rails as before.

"Even when I was a little kid, I always told my mom that I was going to own one of those engines," Manley said.

But that is getting ahead of this tale.

The latest journey, and No. 2706 has had many in its lifetime, began when Manley purchased it from Mike Hart in 1999.

Hart is the owner of Sierra Railroad out of Oakdale.

Weather beaten, and aged with little care, the once proud engine that hauled freight up and down California and into the southwest — from Tucson, Ariz., to El Paso, Texas — sits in parts on a fenced lot at the corner of Parkhill and 14th streets in Colusa.

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American steam locomotive

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