Early years

The railroad's track is part of what was originally the Napa Valley Railroad founded by early California pioneer Samuel Brannan in 1864. Brannan established it to bring tourists to the resort town of Calistoga, California which he also founded. The railroad's 42 miles (68 km) of track ran from Calistoga to Vallejo, California where it connected with San Francisco Bay Area ferry boat service. California Pacific Railroad Extension Company purchased the Napa Valley Railroad Company at a foreclosure sale on June 9, 1869. Later that same year on December 23, the railroad was renamed the California Pacific Railroad. The track was leased to Southern Pacific Railroad on April 1, 1885 and was soon connected to their main line in Suisun, California. California Pacific Railroad was acquired by Southern Pacific on April 14, 1898. The line was extended to Benicia, California in 1904. The electric interurban railroad San Francisco, Napa and Calistoga Railway was built parallel to the NVRR and opened in 1905 until the 1930s. The NVRR track was utilized by Southern Pacific as a freight branch line for the following 58 years until 1987 when the railroad petitioned for abandonment.

Birth of a new railroad

The NVRR operating company was formed in 1987 by local entrepreneurs and headed by Vincent DeDomenico. DeDomenico was a veteran of more than 50 years in the food business and was formerly the president of Golden Grain, a company founded by his father and famous for its Rice-A-Roni. DeDomenico purchased the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company in 1964 and sold both it and Golden Grain to the Quaker Oats Company in 1986. The NVRR acquired the right of way for $2.5 million after Southern Pacific notified the Interstate Commerce Commission of its intent to abandon the line in 1985.

The new company's plans to create a tourist-oriented Wine Train were strongly opposed by local community activists and several city governments. Some people disliked the noise and pollution of an active passenger train line in their midst, while others felt that the train would attract even more visitors to the Napa Valley, which they saw as already over-saturated with tourists. The project's opponents persuaded the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to order the company to comply with the rigorous requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). However, in a 4-3 decision handed down on March 19, 1990, the Supreme Court of California^[2] held that the PUC had no jurisdiction to require CEQA certification because the train fell under the CEQA exemption for "the institution or increase of passenger or commuter service on rail lines already in use."^[3]

The gap in actual usage during the prolonged transition from Southern Pacific freight use to the proposed Wine Train service was not enough to take the line out of use, although the many years of deferred maintenance necessitated the investment of approximately $20 million to rehabilitate the line before trains could be safely operated on it. The rail line connects to the Union Pacific Railroad and California Northern Railroad and has hosted special trains from Amtrak as well as private excursion trains.^[4]

Equipment

The Napa Valley Wine Train currently runs nine cars on its passenger train consisting of lounge, observation and dining cars originally built by the Pullman Company in the early 1900s for the Northern Pacific Railroad. These cars were later sold to Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad in 1960 and used for the Ski Train between Denver, Colorado and Winter Park, Colorado before the NVRR purchased them in 1987. The cars were extensively refurbished and modified by NVRR before the railroad placed them back into service. Modifications included adding air conditioning and 4 inches of concrete to the car floors in order to stabilize the ride due to the train's low speed. The interiors were remodeled using Honduran mahogany and plush fabrics. The railroad added a Super Dome car to its fleet in 1997. This car was originally built in 1952 for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad and had logged more than a million miles for that railroad prior to being acquired by the NVRR. After the railroad bought this car, the exterior was rebuilt by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus train repair yard in Palmetto, Florida while the interior was restored, updated, and customized by NVRR.

A modified box car containing a 400KVA generator was added to the consist in 2013 in order to maintain constant power to the train during the time that the locomotives are run around to the south end of the train, for the return trip from St. Helena. The generator was placed inside a specially made, sound proof room—with a passageway on the opposite side, to allow passenger to walk the length of the car in comfort. This boxcar remains the world's only walk-through generator car. During the modification process, the roof of this car was lowered by two feet in order to preserve the view from the dome car and weight was added to the side of the car opposite from the generator in order to balance the load.^[15]

2015 controversy

On August 22, 2015, an 11-member book club group was removed from the train for laughing too loudly. The book club, Sisters on the Reading Edge, consisted of ten African-American women and one white woman, their ages ranging from 39 to 85.^[16][17] A reporter on the train expressed dismay that they were removed,^[18] and book club members described the experience as "humiliating."^[19]

A post from Napa Valley Wine Train on their Facebook page accused the group of "physical and verbal abuse towards other guests and staff."^[20] The post was subsequently removed.^[21] Two days later, Napa Valley Wine Train hired crisis communications expert Sam Singer to apologize for both the incident and the Facebook post which he described as "incorrect."^[22][23]

After the story was picked up by the local and national press, the Twitter hashtag #laughingwhileblack was used to express concern about racial bias, white privilege, and the actions of the wine train staff.^[24] Fallout from the incident caused two book club members to lose their jobs. The book club filed a lawsuit seeking $11 million in damages, and after private mediation, reached a settlement in April 2016 for an undisclosed sum.^[16]

Locomotives

NVRR Diesel locomotives #70 & #72

The Quattro Vino, a train to four wineries introduced in 2016

^[27]

There are two locomotives on lease from outside owners: #48 & #5076.

As of October 2023, the Napa Valley Wind Train plans to replace its current locomotive fleet with two Tier 4 locomotives built by Knoxville Locomotive Works.^[28] The first of these entered service in November 2023.^[29]