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Calico Railroad

Buena Park, United States of America

Calico Railroad

The Ghost Town & Calico Railway is a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow-gauge heritage railroad and amusement park attraction within Knott's Berry Farm, an amusement park located in Buena Park, California. Origin Walter Knott began grading and laying a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge railroad at his Knotts Berry Farm

in 1951. He had acquired a collection of vintage rolling stock and other railroad equipment, and wanted to create a railroad experience to run it on. Service started that November, and the railroad formally opened on January 12, 1952. The engines and most of the cars came from the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad and the Rio Grande Southern Railroad. The D&RG painted a narrow-gauge engine and a few narrow-gauge cars, in a color called Rio Grande Gold, for the Chicago Railroad Fair of 1949. The color was so popular that the company painted the equipment for “The Silverton” (which ran between Durango and Silverton, Colorado) the same color in 1950. The GT&C rolling stock was painted this color when it commenced operations in 1952. The engine was fitted with a diamond stack (that was the wrong shaped diamond) and an overly gaudy paint scheme. In an effort to make it more authentic, the train has since been restored to its appearance in the 1940s. So, for example, the engines now have a boiler-tube pilot and straight stack. The passenger cars are painted in Pullman Green (which was mandated by the government when it took over the railroads during World War I). However, the engines

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