I have memories that stretch back over 40 years of visiting Rio Vista Junction as a child, now called the Western Railway Museum.

The museum was not as polished and a little more threadbare back then. Lot of passion for trains and streetcars but perhaps without the funds.

My father grew up as an only child in San Francisco during the age of steam, streetcars, and streamlined buses.

Dad spent much of his youthful free time riding the streetcars into the dunes before the Sunset District was developed. He told me that the operators, always Irish, would let my father take the controls while the operator ate his lunch. Such scenes are unthinkable now in the age of lawsuits, codification, and over parenting.

When I was growing up, my dad shared his passion for transit. And the active rolling stock of the museum of Rio Vista was one of my classrooms.

And when I return to the Western Railway Museum, I feel my dad’s presence.

The old visitors center and gift shop has been replaced by a grand building reminiscent of a train depot that has a gift shop, displays, a cafe, and a research library. The new visitors center was dedicated in 2001.

When I visited the research library, there were many cardboard boxes with my father’s name on it. He was quite the collector. I was told that so far, 12,000 items from my father’s collection had been catalogued.

Both centers are still in existence and I sketched both as a contrast to the growth of the museum.

The old visitor center is close to Highway 12 and the Sacramento Northern mainline and was formerly a service station. I assume this is where passengers caught buses to Rio Vista to the east.

And it seems gasoline was not the only service offered at the station. An E Clampus Vitus plaque near the front entrance reads, “Here between 1942 and 1948, the painted ladies serviced the needs of our men from Travis AFB. Closed by order of an unsympathetic sheriff.”

The museum was founded as the California Railway Museum in 1960 on property at Rio Vista Junction by the rails of the Sacramento Northern Railway (the museum purchased 22 miles of the Sacramento Northern in the mid-1990s.)

After sketching the two visitors centers from two different eras, I sketched the old carbarn.

The cars facing out (left to right) are a Melbourne car No. 648, East Bay Street Railways No. 352, Key System No. 182, and Petaluma and Santa Rosa No. 63. In the foreground to the right is Portland Traction Company No. 4001. 4001 was waiting for passengers to board.

There was one other surprise in the open air carbarn. Earlier I had seen a great horned owl fly from the barn and head to the eucalyptus grove in the picnic area. While I was walking inside the barn I had noticed a very messy nest, it looked like ravens. As I walked near the nest I realized I was being watched.

This was nest was occupied by a great horned owl.