City marks Sacramento Valley Railroad milestone and Theodore Judah bicentennial with ceremonial ride and Historic District celebration
The sounds of history echoed through Historic Folsom Station Plaza on Wednesday as the City of Folsom and its partners celebrated two milestones that helped shape not only the city, but the Sacramento region and California’s future.
The rails that once built a town carried history forward again March 4 as the City of Folsom commemorated the completion of the Sacramento Valley Railroad and celebrated the 200th birthday of its chief engineer, Theodore Judah.
Community members gathered at the Railroad Turntable on Leidesdorff Street to commemorate the 1856 completion of the Sacramento Valley Railroad, the first railroad west of the Mississippi River. When the line connected Sacramento to Folsom, it transformed commerce and mobility across the region and firmly positioned Folsom as a vital transportation hub. Many historians credit the railroad’s arrival as the true catalyst that built the city.
The milestone gathering honored the 170th anniversary of the railroad’s completion to Folsom and the March 4, 1826 birth of Judah — the railroad’s chief engineer and the visionary planner of Folsom’s original townsite. His early work in Northern California laid the foundation for future rail expansion and helped establish Folsom’s place in the state’s transportation history.
City Councilwoman Sarah Aquino welcomed elected officials, community leaders and residents, noting Folsom’s pride in its historic role in California’s railroad development and the city’s continued dedication to preserving that legacy. Under a white tent near the plaza, a draft map of Folsom’s original townsite was displayed — an early version of the final map later submitted — offering a tangible reminder of Judah’s influence on the layout of the community that still thrives today.
The day began with a ceremonial light rail ride symbolically retracing the original rail corridor between Sacramento and Folsom. Invited dignitaries and community leaders boarded a Sacramento Regional Transit District train at Sacramento Valley Station for a 9:04 a.m. departure, traveling along much of the same pathway first established in 1856. Aquino noted the ride paid tribute to a historic 1856 excursion when residents traveled by train between Sacramento and Folsom to celebrate George Washington’s birthday. In reenacting that journey, participants connected steam-era rail travel with modern electric light rail — two eras linked by geography, infrastructure and shared civic memory.
As the train arrived in Historic Folsom, the public celebration unfolded throughout the plaza and surrounding district. From morning through early afternoon, families, history enthusiasts and local leaders rotated between educational exhibits, demonstrations and presentations that brought the railroad era to life. The Railroad Turntable operated with live demonstrations, drawing steady crowds eager to watch the massive structure in motion. Hands-on displays and historic artifacts offered a closer look at the engineering ingenuity that powered early rail travel.
A highlight of the day was the turntable demonstration, which gave attendees a vivid sense of how locomotives were once rotated so they could travel back in the opposite direction. Aquino explained that steam engines were primarily designed to move forward, making turntables essential to railroad operations. Though no locomotive stood atop the platform Wednesday, elected officials stepped forward to help push the structure into motion, recreating the physical effort once required during the steam era.
Guests also enjoyed appearances by miniature donkeys from the Folsom Zoo Sanctuary — a nod to the animals that once played an essential role in Gold Rush-era industry and transport. Children gathered nearby for themed photo opportunities, while others explored exhibits detailing the region’s early transportation systems.
At midday, visitors gathered to celebrate Judah’s bicentennial with a birthday cake in his honor, recognizing the engineer whose vision still influences Folsom’s layout and identity nearly two centuries later.
Programming extended beyond the turntable plaza. At the Historical Outdoor Museum known as “The Square,” attendees watched a presentation of “Folsom’s Gold” performed by Sutter Street Theatre and enjoyed storytime hosted by the Folsom Public Library, offering younger residents a connection to the city’s roots.
Additional historical talks were presented at Willamette Wineworks. Paul Helman, a longtime docent at the California State Railroad Museum, shared insights into the Sacramento Valley Railroad. Helman, who holds a degree in chemical engineering and spent 32 years with Procter & Gamble in technical roles, has volunteered at the museum since 2002 and logged more than 17,500 hours leading tours and presenting railroad history programs, including the popular “Polar Express” experience. He is also a qualified signal system maintainer for the museum’s excursion railroad.
Chuck Spinks, a civil engineer with more than four decades of experience planning and designing hydroelectric and water infrastructure projects, presented on Theodore Judah. Spinks volunteers with multiple organizations, including the American Society of Civil Engineers, Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Placer-Sierra Railroad Heritage Society, and serves as a docent at the California State Railroad Museum.
Christine Pifer-Foote delivered a presentation on Anna Judah, wife of Theodore Judah. A retired teacher with advanced degrees in education and divinity, Pifer-Foote has spent the past five years researching Anna Pierce Judah, focusing on her lost artwork. She served as volunteer curator and author of the 12-panel exhibit “Painting a Legacy: The Search for Anna Judah,” currently displayed at the California State Railroad Museum, and is writing a biography detailing Anna’s life and artistic contributions.
The celebration also featured period costumes, themed photo opportunities and free admission to both The Square and the Folsom Railroad Museum, reinforcing the city’s commitment to preserving and sharing its railroad heritage.
Greeting passengers as they stepped off the commemorative ride was Bob Holderness, who served as vice mayor of Folsom in 1991 and played a pivotal role in bringing modern light rail to the city by reactivating the long-unused rail corridor.
Holderness reflected on how the effort began more than three decades ago, when what started as a funding request evolved into a broader transportation vision for Folsom.
“We started with the route refinement study in 1991,” he said. “In ’91, I was vice mayor, and I was going to the California Transportation Commission to ask for money to buy right-of-way to build what became this bridge.”
During that visit, a conversation with Bob Watkins of Caltrans shifted the focus toward the dormant rail line running along Folsom Boulevard.
“While you’re at it, you better figure out what to do with that railroad track that goes in front of Folsom Boulevard,” Watkins told him. The concern centered on long-term capacity.
“Highway 50 doesn’t have enough capacity for all the growth in the next 30 to 50 years. If you don’t put that railroad track to work, you’ll be in trouble.”
Holderness recalled asking whether Caltrans would assist in making it happen.
“Does that mean Caltrans will help us put it? Oh no. Of course not. We don’t have anything to do with rail tracks — but you guys should do that.”
“That’s what led us to get going… One thing led to another,” he said, later adding with a smile, “That’s the Reader’s Digest version.”
Beyond projected congestion, Holderness said the economics ultimately reinforced the decision.
“It’s just way cheaper than car payments, insurance payments, parking, gas, oil. If you do the math, you ask yourself why you would drive.”
For Holderness, standing beside the historic turntable as a modern light rail train had just arrived on the same corridor, the moment illustrated how decisions made generations apart are connected by the same strip of iron that first reached Folsom in 1856. That iron first arrived at a defining moment in the town’s earliest years.
Railroad first arrived in Folsom in 1856
It was 170 years ago that the railroad became reality shortly after Folsom became a town. While Joseph Folsom was busy tending to his legal and financial struggles in 1853, a group of Californians came together to build what was known as the Sacramento Valley Railroad just down the hill from Folsom. The railroad was completed three years later, connecting Sacramento to the town that carried the name in Folsom’s honor.
Theodore Dehone Judah, the young engineer who would lay out the railroad and also survey the town of Folsom, was at the time working on the famed Niagara Gorge Railroad, universally regarded as a remarkable feat of engineering. In 1854, Col. Charles L. Wilson, president of the fledgling California railroad organization, made a trip to the East Coast to purchase supplies. While Wilson was there, New York Gov. Horatio Seymour introduced him to Judah, who was eager to work in California for the railroad.
As early as 1832, the notion of a transcontinental railroad had been brought forth and by the time Wilson hired Judah, several bills for a “Pacific railroad” had been introduced to Congress. Judah was an enthusiast for the project and, before leaving for California, made certain his views were known.
“The Pacific Railroad will be built,” Judah stated, “and I am going to have something to do with it.”
This must have been his major motivation for accepting Wilson’s offer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad. The Niagara Gorge line had secured Judah’s reputation as a top engineer and he certainly would not have crossed an entire continent for the sole purpose of designing a 20-mile line across a flat valley line. So enthused was Judah over a transcontinental route that his passion earned him the nickname “Crazy” Judah in later years.
He departed with his young wife for California and lost little time in getting the survey done. On May 30, 1854, 15 days after he had started work, Judah issued a report on the preliminary survey and future business prospects of the Sacramento Valley Railroad. He continued with the railroad until the trackage was completed to Folsom in February 1856.
When the laid-out railroad was well underway, Judah set himself up as a consulting engineer in Sacramento. During this time, he also made several other railroad surveys, attended Congressional sessions in Washington to lobby for a transcontinental line, explored in the Sierras and laid out the town of Folsom. All the while, his uppermost thought remained the transcontinental line.
He helped raise $46,500 in subscriptions in the little town of Dutch Flat for railroad surveys, then went to San Francisco to raise more money. Financiers with heavy investments in stage lines, express companies and steamship lines turned him down, ridiculing him. Judah persevered, only to be more bitterly disappointed once the railroad was under way in 1863. The “Big Four” — Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker — seemed to him to be concerned only with taking the largest profit with the least risk.
Appalled at their tactics in building “his” railroad, Judah in September 1863 left for the East Coast to raise the capital to buy them out. In Panama, he contracted yellow fever and died at age 37 shortly after his return to New York City. Though his life was brief, his vision left a permanent imprint on Folsom and the nation’s rail system.
The mechanics of that early rail era were just as critical as the vision behind it.
Turntable evolution: 1856–1913
The first of several turntables to be used at Folsom between 1856 and 1913 was one of two delivered to the Sacramento Valley Railroad via Cape Horn on the clipper Dashing Wave in June 1855. Because construction of the railroad itself took precedence, the task of assembling the knocked-down turntables did not begin until December of that year. Both were assembled at the company’s shops at the Foot of R Street in Sacramento, and the Folsom turntable was conveyed to the line’s eastern terminus soon after the rails reached that point. The turntable was installed at Folsom on Feb. 16, 1856, and was first used to turn a locomotive four days later.
The first SVRR turntables were of the deck type with the railroad track laid on the top “deck” of the turntable bridge. The turntable consisted of a forty-foot wooden truss bridge pivoted on an eight-inch disc-type center bearing. The weight of the swing bridge was supported on six conical wheels rolling on a flat cast iron circle rail laid around the perimeter of the turntable pit.
Holley’s Railroad Advocate reported in 1857 that these turntables were turned by means of the “common gear at the side,” though many were likely pushed by brute strength. A contemporary note in the Folsom Telegraph indicated four or five men were required to turn the first Folsom turntable.
A preliminary excavation of the Folsom turntable site conducted by PAR Environmental Services, Inc., in April 1995 revealed that the original turntable pit had an inside clear diameter of forty-feet ten-inches and was approximately six feet deep. The brick pit retaining wall was seventeen inches thick, and several pieces of the granite foundation for the turntable’s iron circle rail were found still in place. A brick-lined trench extending about eight feet away from the 1856 pit likely provided workers access under the cover to the turntable mechanism.
Folsom’s original turntable was replaced late in 1867. Unlike the first turntable, which required several men to operate, the new version could be turned by a single man. This suggests it was of the center-bearing style then coming into vogue, likely a wooden gallows or A-frame design similar to those used by the Central Pacific.
Additional replacements occurred in 1882 and again in 1891. A photograph from that period reveals the later turntable as an SP standard “Number 3” turntable measuring fifty-six feet in diameter. It was reconstructed in 1908 but was soon found to be too short for newer equipment.
Concurrent with the introduction of seventy-foot McKeen motor cars to the Folsom-Placerville branch, the Folsom turntable was lengthened in May 1910 to approximately sixty-six feet in diameter. Evidence indicates that the upper courses of the fifty-six-foot pit wall were removed to allow the longer turntable to clear.
Folsom’s last turntable remained in service only three years after the 1910 enlargement. In March 1913, it was replaced with a wye track constructed west of Folsom at the Placerville switch. Immediately upon completion of the wye, the Folsom turntable was dismantled, ending nearly six decades of turntable operations in the city.
Though the steam engines are long gone, the corridor they traveled remains active.
Rail use today is vital transportation component
After sitting dormant for decades, rail service once again became a central part of Folsom’s mobility.
On Oct. 15, 2005, the Gold Line extension from Sunrise Station officially opened, connecting Folsom residents to Sacramento and beyond through a fast, affordable and reliable transit link that has since become a cornerstone of regional mobility.
Over the past two decades, SacRT’s light rail system has played a key role in shaping Folsom’s growth, linking residents to jobs, schools, shopping centers and recreational destinations throughout the capital region.
“For 20 years, light rail has been a bridge connecting riders between Folsom and the Sacramento region,” said SacRT General Manager and CEO Henry Li. “We’re grateful for the continued support of our riders and excited about continued improvements ahead.”
From steam locomotives turned by hand to electric trains gliding into modern stations, the corridor that launched Folsom’s future continues to carry it forward.
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