Visalia Electric Railway

[rubbertoe]

Not sure if this is the right thread or not, but I happened to come across this in Exeter the other day while on vacation. I had previously heard of the Visalia Electric railway, but didn't know that it was based in Exeter. We had dinner in a Mexican restaurant and noticed that there were murals painted all over the town a few years ago. I didn't get around to checking out the former station, it may not even exist anymore, I didn't see anything resembling a station. However, the wall of the restaurant across the street had a huge mural that depicted the Visalia Electric railway.

The first three pictures show the mural from left to right...








The last 2 images zoom in on the lower left corner, where I spotted something interesting...






Good job by the artist, and I wonder what prompted him/her to add the Wizard of Oz characters

For further info on the line see this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visalia_Electric_Railroad

There is a book available on Amazon too, but $55 seems a bit pricey for it:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1930013159/ref=ord_cart_shr?_encoding=UTF8&m=A3CYSO4WUO0AAX&v=glance

RT

[bobdavis]

It might be more appropriate for the Visalia Electric story to be posted in the "Red Cars" section; VE, like PE was a Southern Pacific subsidiary. Two VE cars survive--there were sold to PE as trailer cars, since VE was high-voltage AC and PE was 600/1200 Volt DC. Their bodies are preserved at Orange Empire Ry. Museum in Perris. The diesel switcher, VE 502 is preserved at the Western Railway Museum east of Fairfield; it's similar to the GE 44-ton units that PE operated from the mid 40s to the late 50s. As far as I know, the VE carbarn still stands in Exeter (used by the San Joaquin Valley RR), and the SP/VE depot in Visalia is now a restaurant. One or two of the VE substation buildings may still exist; they were simple concrete structures that housed transformers and switchgear--no need for rotary converters on an AC line.