We received these great pictures from our customer Troy of his railroad before he bought a TrainJunkie's backdrop and after! Wow! His train looked great before but it now looks enhanced and more realistic. Thank you for the great pictures Troy!

​Backdrop: Oil Refinery

January 1873: after considering and rejecting moving the terminal of the transcontinental railroad from Oakland to Marin County, the Big Four sold the San Francisco & North Pacific, which was acquired from the California Pacific Purchase, back to Peter Donahue.

Our California Sunset backdrop graced this fun car scene with an Amtrak train in the background.

Today's train history post is not a happy one. On January 15, 1989 in Maizdi, Bangladesh, a train carrying Muslim pilgrims crashed head-on with a mail train, killing at leaast 110 people and injuring as many as 1,000 others. Many people were riding on the roof of the trains and in between the cars.  This is so tragic! Especially since a lot of the passengers were not even seated in the train itself but were sitting on the roof and in between the cars. While trains are magnificent machines, they can also be quite dangerous and deadly.

January 12, 1883
The last spike was driven on the Pecos River Bridge in New Mexico, completing the Sunset Route. The Sunset Route is a through line from California to New Orleans, with associated steamer connections to New York. It is the first US route from the Atlantic to the Pacific controlled by a single company, the Central Pacific. The Central Pacific railroad company is also arguably the first US transcontinental railroad company.

Source: California State Railroad Museum

One of our customers, Doug, from Branson, Missouri, sent us some beautiful pictures of his custom Train Junkie Backdrop with his model railroad. Thanks for sharing with us Doug! The railroad looks spectacular! We will be posting more of these pictures on our blog, as well as our social media outlets. If you have a Train Junkie backdrop and would like your model railroad to be featured, please send us pictures and who knows, your pictures may end up here too!

Photo by Richard L. Holt

In January of 1855, the Panama Railroad was completed. This railroad was the first railroad to connect the Atlantic at the Caribbean and the Pacific at the Gulf of Panama. US built this railroad and also owned it.  From the Atlantic port it traveled southeast to reach the Pacific port, just as the Panama Canal does today.

Information curtesy of: Kyle K. Wyatt
Curator of History & Technology
California State Railroad Museum

Here's a Southern Pacific engine enjoying our California Sunset Backdrop.