End of the Line : Locomotive From Back-Yard Railroad Heads for Museum

Eyes misted and a leaden quiet filled the air outside Ward and Betty Kimball’s home Sunday morning as the majestic Emma Nevada rolled through the grove of orange trees in their back yard near San Gabriel for the last time.

A taut steel cable pulled the 20-ton locomotive onto a ramp, and when it rested on a flatbed truck parked just inside the Kimballs’ gate, Ward Kimball snapped one last picture and broke the spell.

“She’s there,” the 79-year-old former Disney animator said matter-of-factly. “It’s done.”

The 111-year-old Emma Nevada was the heart of the Grizzly Flats Railroad, the line the Kimballs have run in their back yard for more than half a century. Sitting atop the flatbed Sunday, it was at last ready for the journey to a new home at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Riverside County.

Other cars from the railroad have been shipped for display in a newly built engine house that the Kimballs also donated to the museum. Eventually their entire railroad--another full-size locomotive, 900 feet of track, a furnished Victorian-style depot, windmill and water tower--will probably end up there.

But Sunday was special because it was the Emma Nevada’s turn to go and nearly two dozen train buffs--Kimball family members and others who had enjoyed the Grizzly Flats Railroad through the years--were on hand for one last look.

The back-yard rail line began in 1938 when the Kimballs, train enthusiasts and collectors of models, rescued the battered Emma Nevada from a fate on the scrapheap and had it hauled to what was then an orange grove beneath the San Gabriel Mountains.

While they restored the coal-burning steam locomotive, they built a house on the property, began raising a family and started constructing what would become the Grizzly Flats Railroad.

When other families built homes nearby in the 1950s, the Kimballs stopped running the Emma Nevada because the coal-burning engine spewed too much grime into the air. The big engine, however, was always an attraction to the hundreds of visitors that the Kimballs hosted.

“This is part of my life,” said Betty Kimball as she fussed about the cavernous shed that had housed the Emma Nevada along with the other working locomotive--a smaller, wood-burning model from Hawaii known as the Chloe, named after her daughter.

“My kids played down here,” Betty Kimball said. “Through the years we’ve had Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts and Brownies and Blue Birds. For 25 years I’ve been taking groups through here.”

Just as nostalgic was Tom Crawford, a retired aircraft engineer who wore a cap that had “One Track Mind” written across the front.

“We really had some good times down here,” said Crawford, one of the many friends who helped the Kimballs build the Grizzly Flats Railroad and owner of his own private Joshua Tree Southern Railroad near Joshua Tree.

Least sentimental was Ward Kimball, who seemed to have no regrets.

After his locomotive was ready to go, he held forth under an orange tree, telling of how 10 ranchers stood about in his grove 54 years ago and watched warily as the “city slickers” from Alhambra unloaded the Emma Nevada from a truck.

“When she finally rolled off the ramp and hit the track, they all burst into applause,” he said with a big laugh. “I knew then we were in with the neighbors.”