Ghost Town & Calico Railway
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The Ghost Town & Calico Railroad is a heritage railroad within Knott's Berry Farm, a theme park in Buena Park, California.
Unlike many other theme park railroads, the locomotives and most of the other equipment of the Ghost Town & Calico has been restored to its original paint schemes and appearance on Colorado's Rio Grande Southern and Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroads. Also unlike most theme park railroads, it travels in a circle and riders get off at the same place they got on.
Walter Knott brought the equipment to Buena Park in 1952 and completed it the following year. The roster includes two Class C-19 Consolidation (2-8-0) locomotives, both originally constructed for the Denver & Rio Grande in 1881. When retired from service in Colorado, they were D&RGW #340 and RGS #41. Knott also purchased one of the famed "Galloping Goose" railtrucks used on the narrow-gauge lines of Colorado in the 1920s and 1930s for passengers and mail when patronage did not justify an entire train. The Goose #3 continues to work at the GT&C on quieter days during the off-season.
Also rostered several coaches (mostly closed-vestibule), the parlor cars "Chama" and "Durango", a bobber caboose, and the business car B-20 "Edna", used by the President of the Rio Grande Southern.
A ride on the GT&C features a trip around Ghost Town and Boardwalk areas of Knotts, punctuated by a holdup by masked robbers, who have been known to announce their intentions by shouting, "This is a tax audit!" or similar tongue-in-cheek comments.