Where is Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad located?

Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad is located in Los Gatos, CA.

How do I get tickets to Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad?

Tickets and current schedules are available on the operator's official website at https://bjwrr.org/.

Photo by Don DeBold from San Jose, CA, USA, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad

Los Gatos, CA

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Upcoming Events

No ticketed events are currently listed for Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad. Many heritage operators publish schedules seasonally or run on regular open hours instead of dated events.

Check the operator’s website for current hours and special runs, or subscribe to event alerts and we’ll email you when something is scheduled.

About Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad

Oak Meadow Park. Tickets in person at booth. Year-round Sat/Sun, Summer daily.

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History

Billy Jones (1884–1968) spent a lifetime railroading — starting as a 13-year-old engine wiper on the narrow-gauge South Pacific Coast Railroad and rising to engineer on Southern Pacific's Coast Daylight run. In 1939 he found an 18-inch-gauge steam locomotive on the San Francisco docks, a 1905 engine built for the Venice Miniature Railway that was bound for Japan as scrap, and bought it for $100. He and his railroad friends laid out the "Wildcat Railroad" on his Los Gatos prune ranch, and after losing both sons in World War II, Jones ran it for neighborhood children every Sunday in their memory until his death in 1968. The little line drew admirers including Walt Disney, who became a friend and made Jones an honorary engineer on Disneyland's trains for the park's opening weekend in July 1955. After Jones died, local residents formed a nonprofit, bought the railroad, and moved it to Oak Meadow Park in Los Gatos, reopening on July 24, 1970, after nearly two years of restoration that included repurposing a wrecked 89-foot Southern Pacific piggyback flatcar as a bridge over Los Gatos Creek. A mile-and-a-half extension into Vasona Park followed in 1972, and by 1992 the railroad was carrying well over 100,000 riders a year. The 2-spot returned to steam in July 2005 after a ten-year restoration, on its 100th birthday.

The Trains

The signature locomotive is the 2-spot, the 18-inch-gauge steam engine built in 1905 for the Venice Miniature Railway that Billy Jones rescued for $100 in 1939; it runs weekends from late spring through fall. A second steamer, 4-6-2 oil-burner #5 from Merrick Light Railway Works, arrived in May 2013 to rotate with the 2-spot. Two diesel-hydraulics styled after EMD GP60Ms handle winter and summer-weekday duty: #2502 (1992, Custom Locomotive Works of Chicago, in Southern Pacific Black Widow paint) and #3502 (2006, in Chicago and North Western colors), plus #4, a 2008 volunteer-built Davenport-style switcher used on work trains. Trains are made up of open-air cars — four built for the Overfair Railway at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition — along with a wheelchair-accessible car and the 2016-built LIVE OAK; a full six-car train seats up to 132 riders. The railroad also operates a historic Savage carousel that appeared at the same 1915 exposition.