Swanton Pacific

Twelve miles north of Santa Cruz, California on the beautiful 3200 acre Swanton Pacific Ranch you’ll find the Swanton Pacific Railroad. The railroad has three one-third scale Pacific type locomotives and a miniature General Electric U25B diesel. The 19 inch gauge steam locomotives were built for Louis MacDermot’s Overfair Railway at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. MacDermot built five locomotives for the railway, four Pacifics and a 0-6-0T switch engine. Only three of the Pacifics were operational and the 0-6-0T was used in the construction of the Overfair Railway. After several owners and three quarters of a century the Swanton Pacific has acquired three of the Pacifics and the 0-6-0T. The forth non-operational Pacific is on display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.

The railroad has an operational turntable, roundhouse, truss bridge, and a miniature crane. All of these things can be seen in Machines of Iron’s “Swanton Pacific”. The San Francisco Zoo’s unique railroad is included as a bonus featurette.