Virginia & Truckee Coach No. 17 was built in 1868 by the Central Pacific Railroad in their Sacramento shops as a private car for the officials of the railroad. It is awaiting restoration and is on display in the annex building of the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City, NV.
The text of the exhibit sign follows:
Virginia & Truckee Coach No. 17
Hotel on Wheels
This car is the oldest piece of railroad equipment in the museum’s collection. It was built in the fall of 1868 by the Central Pacific Railroad to provide accommodations for officials touring that line far from civilization. In May 1869 it carried CPRR president Leland Stanford and guests, along with the ceremonial gold and silver spikes, to Promontory Summit, Utah to mark the completion of the Pacific railroad.
Still arranged with rooms for sitting, sleeping, and dining, it became Charles Crocker’s private car in 1872, and it was sold to the Virginia & Truckee Railroad in 1875. For three years it served the V&T as a business car, often carrying railroad officers and Comstock barons to the East Coast.
A coach on the Comstock
In 1878 the car was remodeled as a coach for use on the V&T’s
Lightning Express. For identification, it was assigned the number 17.
Little used after mixed-trains became the norm in 1924, the old coach made its last run on the V&T in June 1938, at the tail of the railroad’s first railman excursion train. Soon thereafter, the car was acquired by Twentieth Century-Fox, which used it as a movie prop. In 1984 it appeared in Clint Eastwood’s
Pale Rider, the last motion picture to feature any of the museum’s equipment. It still wears the markings it carried in that film. The woodpecker holes date from periods of inactivity between film assignments.
Below is information from the Friends of the Nevada State Railroad Museum
website .
NEVADA STATE RAILROAD MUSEUM
V&T Coach No. 17 (Former V&T No. 25)
Virginia & Truckee coach No. 17 is the oldest, and probably the most historic, car in the Nevada State Railroad Museum collection. Built in 1868 by the Central Pacific Railroad in their Sacramento shops, it was a private car for the officials of the railroad, especially Charles Crocker, and included facilities for eating and sleeping as well as office space. We believe it is the car that carried Leland Stanford and his party, with the Golden Spike (the "Last Spike") and the Nevada Silver Spike, to the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869.
The V&T purchased the car in January 7, 1876 for $2500 and outfitted it for use as their Officer's car, numbered 25 and named "BONANZA". It was particularly for use by Nevada's newly elected Senator William Sharon, and the car traveled to San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The Senator leased private cars from the Pullman Palace Car Company after 1878, and in 1880 purchased his own new car built by Pullman's Detroit shops. The V&T refitted their car as a coach in April 1878 at a cost of $3,197. The car was renumbered No. 17 and used in the Lightning Express, as shown in the well-known James H. Crockwell photo of the Lightning Express on the Crown Point trestle in Gold Hill.
After many years of service, coach No. 17 was purchased by Twentieth Century-Fox in 1938, beginning a new movie career. In May 1972 it was sold to Short Line Enterprises for continued movie service. It was purchased by the Nevada State Railroad Museum in 1988, where it is awaiting restoration.