Sausalito, California: Railroad Car House Boat

This is one of many of Sausalito's eclectic houseboats among over 500 anchored on the city's northern edge of Richardson Bay. "The Train Wreck" houseboat (or floating home, as residents prefer to call them) started its long and colorful life is 1889 for the San Francisco and Northern Pacific railway as car #41. The Pullman style rail car was originally divided into two sections -- a passenger section and accompanying baggage section. In 1907, through a merger, it became part of the rolling stock of the Northernwestern Pacific Railroad and renamed car #180.

By 1936 it was retired and sold, becoming part of a duplex in Mill Valley, California where it remained landlocked until 1979 when it was purchased, cut into two sections and placed on a concrete hull to form the houseboat. Since that time it has been lovingly restored and maintained by two subsequent owners. Today the passenger section is the home's dining room and the baggage section is used as a bathroom and laundry room. It is a unique and visually humorous structure that appears as though a train car has impaled a house.