Urbita Lake Railway

The Urbita Lake Railway was a 1⁄2 mile (0.8 km) long miniature railway with a gauge of 18 in (457 mm), which operated from approximately 1910 to at least August 1915 at Urbita Hot Springs park (since 1966 the location of the Inland Center shopping mall) in San Bernardino, California.

In 1910, the Pacific Electric Railway took-over the San Bernardino Valley Traction Company and thus became owner of the Urbita Hot Springs.

[1][dead link‍] According to a contemporary newspaper, the railroad was unique, because it had probably the youngest president and oldest engineer in the world, the president being Buster ‘Buddy’ Courcy, at the age of two, and the engineer being the retired railway worker Bill Simpson from the San Bernardino Valley.

[4] The locomotive had some technical innovations, such as a valve control without eccentrics, which was easy to adjust and to maintain.

The Vanderbilt type boiler had a maximum pressure of 10 bar (150 psi; 1,000 kPa) and delivered 25 hp (19 kW).

‘Buddy’ Courcy (right), youngest railway president, and his train, 1915.