The Pacific Southwest Railway Museum Association is a non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving and interpreting historic railroads in the Pacific Southwest. Its collection is located in Campo, CA, on Depot St, and is open to the public 9.00 am - 5.00 pm Saturday & Sunday except 26th & 27th December and 2nd & 3rd January. The museum also runs passenger excursions using vintage equipment from its collection on many weekends over portions of what was originally the San Diego & Arizona Railway.
European ranchers moved into the Campo area in the late 1860s and a small settlement was soon established with a general store, hotel and school. The San Diego & Arizona Railway reached Campo from San Diego in 1916 by a roundabout route, including 44 miles through Mexico, with the first passenger train arriving on 19th September. In 1919, after financial delays, thirteen years of labour and $17,000,000 in cost (nearly $115,000 per mile) a connection with the Southern Pacific at El Centro was completed to form a direct 148 mile link from San Diego to a transcontinental railroad.
The SD&A was financed partly by developer and entrepreneur John D. Spreckels, and partly by the Southern Pacific. In 1932, financial problems forced Spreckels’ heirs to transfer their share of the railroad to the SP, which then renamed it the San Diego & Arizona Eastern. San Diego’s Metropolitan Transit Development Board bought the SD&AE in 1979 to create an inter-county light rail passenger line. It contracted freight services to a series of private operators, and freight runs continued until a brush fire burned two trestles on 18th June 1983. Coupled with reduced freight traffic, this led to termination of trains through Campo to El Centro.