Memorable Character

BRUCE MACGREGOR - RAILROAD HISTORIAN, AUTHOR

In October of 1965 I received a letter from a Stanford University student inquiring about a watercolor that I had painted of the iconic Combine #5 Railcar that operated on the historic Sierra Railroad and was stored in the Jamestown rail yard. It turned out that the young man had been photographing the very same car for several years, saw my painting exhibited at the Alameda County Fair, and was interested in purchasing it. After the exchange of several letters and some friendly negotiating, tuition strapped Bruce MacGregor agreed to pay $30 for my “Sierra Combine” watercolor along with giving me the choice of a half dozen highly desirable and personally printed glossy’s from his growing collection of railroad photographs.

During my communications with Bruce I learned that he was working on his first book, South Pacific Coast, about the seventy seven mile long narrow gauge railroad that ran from Alameda to Santa Cruz beginning in 1876. His book was scheduled to be published in 1968 by Howell-North Books of Berkeley and he offered me the opportunity to submit line drawings of several SPC locomotives for potential use in his upcoming publication however, unfortunately, the publisher decided to use their own freelance illustrator.

Bruce went on to have a career in Knowledge Management at Hewlett Packard while actively pursuing his railroad passion that began in 1957 when he and a friend discovered a slowly decaying narrow gauge Carter Brothers caboose, built in Newark California, in the Southern California desert. In order to safely recover and preserve the historic ninety year old Caboose, Bruce co-founded the nonprofit Society for the Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources (SPCRR) and stored the caboose in the Patterson barn at the future Ardenwood Regional Park.

As a highly regarded railroad historian Bruce is also the author of Birth of California Narrow Gauge, Pacific Coast: A Centennial, and co-authored Portrait of a Silver Lady: The train they Called the California Zephyr.

The SPCRR operates The Railroad Museum at Ardenwood, a Heritage Railroad located at Ardenwood Historic Farm Regional Park in Fremont where summer weekend visitors can ride both horse drawn and diesel power trains as well as behind guest steam powered locomotives over the mile and half narrow gauge railroad. Displays of restored Carter Brothers flat cars, box cars, combination cars are on view along with the restored original caboose saved from the punishing desert. Although he is retired and living in Oregon I continue to cross paths with Bruce at Ardenwood’s annual “Rail Fair Days” where he and his wife Kathy continue to be driving forces behind the SPCRR.

-Bill  4/23

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