A Nevada County Narrow Gauge Tank Car Field Save.

The Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum has just acquired a former tank that rode on NCNG flat car #185. This tank is one of the four sister tanks that came to the NCNG in 1934 as Union Oil tanks and were placed on former F&CC flat cars #181, 183, 185 & 187 which had been purchased from the NCO. These particular tanks had formerly operated on the Pacific Coast Railroad from 1906 to 1934 from Los Olivas which was south of the Santa Maria oil fields in southern California. The #185 & #187 went out of service in 1942 after the NCNG was abandoned due to the World War II and the tanks were set off at a oil distribution company siding in Grass Valley, California which is now Railroad Ave. In 1984, tank car tank #187 was donated to the new NCNG museum in Nevada City and was later totally restored with a newly built F&CC flat car.
The #185 tank disappeared around 2005 and its whereabout not know until now. As it turned out the tank was acquired by a private individual and ended up in a backyard just five miles or so from where it was taken and was still in Nevada County. Now that the museum has acquired the tank, we will be working to build another flat car for this tank (former PC 919) and it can join its sister car #187. Just an aside, the #183 tank still exists and is near Whitehorse, Alaska. The #181 which was later wrecked and scrapped and the #183, were both moved to the WP&YR during the war. John Christensen