There will be a living history presentation by former employees of the AMC and other incidents and machinery of railroad history.  Co-sponsored by the City of Ione and the Amador County Historic Society, this community event will double in size from the first Rail Fair in 2006. The Central Pacific Railroad, forerunner to the Southern Pacific Railroad pushed the Ione Branch into the City of Ione in the 1870’s.  It’s arrival was celebrated by Amador County residents with a multi-day welcoming festival. Some observers believe this celebration was the beginning of what is known today as the Ione Homecoming Picnic, now in it’s 132 year it is believed to be the longest continuously running community festival in the California. In 1906 the need was seen to push rail service farther east to Jackson as mountain roads became impassable in the winter months. 12 miles of rails were laid with a hundred curves and a 4.5% grade rising over 1,100 feet in elevation, the Amador Central, as it was named for half a century, became known as  the most beautiful, steepest, mountain railroad in the nation  contained within one county; Amador County.

With this historical pedigree the railroad operated until 2004 under a variety of owners. Then, in danger of being torn up and salvaged, Recreational Railroad Coalition, Inc., (RRC) a consortium of historic rail preservationists, stepped into the scene and made an offer to “Save the Amador” for recreation and education. Today locomotives and boxcars no longer struggle up the mountain grade. The AMC was designated by RRC as the second of two railroads it manages solely as recreational/educational railroad corridors. Antique motorized track inspection cars, which themselves have been rescued from the scrappers pile, now ply these historic rails. Arrangements have been made to provide rides for the general public on this historic old railroad corridor. Speeders, a Skagit Car and a pumper car will be used to give riders the experience of, once again, riding the rails of the AMC.