Walk into the California State Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento now, and the first thing that greets you isn't a locomotive — it's a wall of light. The Lantern Project has transformed the museum's lobby into a glowing display of 206 historic railroad lanterns, fully lit for the first time as part of a new open storage exhibit.
CBS Sacramento's GoodDay Sacramento was among the first to get a look at the completed installation, with reporter Ryan previewing the lanterns lit up in the lobby, according to CBS News. The museum holds more than 500 lanterns in its total collection, meaning the new display puts a significant chunk of that holding in public view for the first time rather than tucked away in closed storage.
From Switchman's Tool to Lobby Centerpiece
Long before radios crackled over railyards, hand lanterns were how train crews, station agents, and switchmen talked to each other in the dark. Specific swinging motions and color-coded glass globes conveyed commands across the tracks, according to Issaquah History Museums: red globes meant stop, green meant proceed, and blue marked equipment that was stationary and under repair.
The lanterns themselves evolved considerably over the decades. Early American models burned whale or signal oil inside tall 5.375-inch glass globes, but World War I supply shortages pushed the industry toward heat-resistant Corning glass and kerosene, giving rise to the compact 3.25-inch “short globe” lantern that dominated railroads from the 1920s through the 1960s, per the Railroadiana Collectors Association. Those kerosene lanterns were eventually phased out in favor of battery-powered electric devices.
Why Open Storage Changes What Visitors See
The display puts 206 lanterns from the museum’s collection in a public-facing space, bringing a portion of the holdings into view. The lanterns are showcased in the museum’s high-traffic lobby.
The museum is located in Sacramento’s historic Old Sacramento Waterfront and welcomes over 500,000 visitors annually, according to the California State Railroad Museum. The lanterns now greet many of those visitors before they ever reach the museum's main exhibition hall.
A Collection Built Over Decades, With National Recognition
The museum’s collection includes railroad artifacts, and its main exhibition hall displays restored locomotives and historic railcars.
Lanterns like the ones now on display carry real weight among collectors, too. A rare blue-globe Union Pacific kerosene lantern — the color reserved for marking stationary equipment under repair — sold at auction for a record $46,200 in March 2021, Trains Magazine reported, a reminder of how narrowly restricted and valuable certain historic signal colors remain.
Part of a Broader Push to Preserve Sacramento's Rail History
The Lantern Project arrives amid a wider wave of preservation spending around the museum's home turf. California State Parks launched a $23.7 million, 18-month roof restoration in August on the historic 1869 Erecting Shop and 1882 Boiler Shop, located half a mile north of the museum in the Sacramento Railyards, as Hoodline previously reported. The two historic shops are the focus of the roof restoration.
The California State Railroad Museum Foundation is the museum’s nonprofit partner, according to the Heritage Rail Alliance. The Foundation supports artifact preservation and educational programs. It is also a nonprofit partner of Railtown 1897 State Historic Park in Jamestown. Last September, California State Parks spotlighted the Railroad Museum as part of public events building toward California's 175th anniversary of statehood, underscoring the railroad's outsized role in shaping 19th-century California.
For now, the lanterns hang lit in the lobby — a small, glowing fraction of the museum's full collection, with hundreds more still waiting somewhere in storage.
