Series 51, 53, 55 and 57 were the American Car Company "Windsplitter" (round front) combination passenger/baggage cars. The American Car Company of Saint St. Louis, Missouri built these, the first cars that the P&SR acquired.
The bigwigs from Petaluma went east to the St. Louis Industrial Exposition (the St. Louis Worlds Fair). There were four cars that had won the First Place Award for design and workmanship. They were carried on Brill model 27E-2 trucks. They were unique cars for their time, having rounded fronts and with passenger doors back between the trucks, instead of having end platforms. They were striking cars in their stature and novelty, with curved glass front and rear windows, and with pilots (cowcatchers) that would have looked right at home on an American Standard 4-4-0 steam locomotive.
These cars were bought, right off of the floor of the world's fair, brought to Petaluma and named, not numbered. They were the Petaluma, the McNear, the Meacham and (?). Numbers started to appear on the cars, after the Holman cars arrived from San Francisco.
Cars in the series 59 through 73 (8 cars) had a flatter front and conventional enclosed end platforms, with step boxes. The Holman Car Company, of San Francisco built these cars. Cars 59 through 69 were passenger-combination motors with American Car Co. MCB lightweight interurban motor trucks. Car No. 59 exists today as a home in Sonoma County and No. 63 is restored and runs constantly at the Western Railway Museum.
Holman cars 71 and 73 were open control trailers, with American Car Co. MCB trailer trucks. Holman built these cars to the same dimensions as the Holman combination motors except that they were passenger-only cars and had wire screen below the beltline and pull-down sunshades above where the windows were in the regular Holman cars. At least one of these trailers was later converted to full combination-motor configuration.
Car Number 8 (renumbered 01, later renumbered 8) is an Express motor. This car was built by the Holman Car Co. specifically for independent express and baggage service and was used as part of the "Overnight Freight" service. During WWII the No. 8 was turned into a storage shed at the D Street yard in Petaluma. After the war it was sold and became a feed shed on a chicken ranch in Penngrove.
In 1997 Don and Jeff Millerick acquired the No. 8, in falling down condition, and restored it to the glory that you see in photos on this web site. Petaluma Trolley now has a set of Boston Taylor trucks on the property for the No. 8 (they're not paid for yet but they are here.) We have trolley bases and poles for the No. 8. We also recently acquired a GE air compressor to go on the car and are putting together a solid-state substation to provide the 600-volt DC power for the overhead.
The Petaluma & Santa Rosa built most of their own freight equipment. Boxcar No. 2, two other boxcars and Caboose No. 1 still exist. We keep looking for more. The P&SR built two freight motors early on. One was first numbered "10". They were later both renumbered as 1004 and 1008.
These locomotives were basically a flatcar with two American MCB motor trucks under it and a square wood cab in the middle on top. There was a single swing-around trolley pole on top of the cab. Soon these simple freight motors were ganged together with flatcar motor-calf units numbered 1002 and 1006 these calves had motor trucks but no cab. Before long, photos show that these locos grew sloping ballast tanks on each end to increase the traction of the wheels to the rails. Later on pantographs were mounted on top of the cabs so that the engineer wouldn't have to get out of the cab and swing the pole around to reverse.
Eventually, the wooden freight motors were replaced by purpose built, steel Baldwin electric locomotives. These units were powerful enough to operate as single units, unless the train was very long or especially heavy. They came from the factory with pantograph current collectors.
1947 saw the end of electrical service on the Petaluma & Santa Rosa Railroad. The overhead was torn down and GE 44 ton Diesel locomotives took over. The first two were Nos. 1 and 2 and they had come from the Lehigh Valley Railway, way back east. These units were set up to run singly so, before long, they were traded to Southern Pacific for Numbers 3 and 4 which were set up to run together as multiple units. One of the "44 Tonners" is rumored to still exist here in California.