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The front yard of the Wine Country Radio train car studios.
Herlinda’s cousins Lloyd and Lee Palmer are visiting from Oregon and they are in the Brew Ha Ha converted train coach studio with Herlinda and Daedalus today. Lloyd Palmer is a train expert and today he will tell us all about the retired train cars that make up the Wine Country Radio studios and offices here in Santa Rosa. Herlinda has brought her family to the show before. Her father Eloy Heras, a Navy veteran who served in Vietnam, was on this episode back in April of 2018. That day, he told some stories that involved both the Navy and beer. Also, Eloy and Herlinda’s brother Anthony came on Brew Ha Ha on this episode, last year on June 19, 2025.
Lloyd is also a retired Navy veteran like Herlinda’s father Eloy. “Trains and beer? I can talk all day!” said cousin Lloyd upon Herlinda’s invitation. They have a caboose in their own backyard, with beer. Lee says they have brewskis in the caboosky. Lloyd has a collection of almost 2500 craft beer tap handles. They are all on display in his garage. He started the collection about 30 years ago. He collects tap handles from Oregon microbreweries and IPAs nationwide.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Trains are the only vehicle you can drink a beer on and not really worry about it. –Daedalus Howell, Words of Wisdom
The Wine Country Radio studios may be the only train car radio studios that Lloyd has ever heard of. There are several types of cars. There is a boxcar and a baggage car. The KRSH studios and Exitos, sister stations, are in the boxcar. He thinks the Wine Country Radio studio was a passenger coach, not a caboose, given its fine original woodwork, high vaulted cieling and windows.
Rails from 1925, Cars from 1910-1915
There is still some rail and some historical railroad ties in the ground under the cars. Lloyd found the mill mark on a rail from 1925 from a steel mill in Tennessee. He suggests that these tracks were a spur at a station, used for maintenance, before becoming a train parking lot. A spur means it is not parallel to the main track.
Lee has turned her caboose into a painting studio. She wanted to restore it rather than convert it. The caboose is from 1981 and was in use until about 2006. The interior colors are the same except they put a little bar in it. There was a strict rule on the railroad called Rule G which prohibited workers from consuming alcohol before or during work shifts. Now they have a red bar across the Rule G sign. In an ironic twist, Brew Ha Ha is recorded in Studio G.
Lloyd estimates the Studio G coach was built from about 1910-1915 since it is made of wood, rather than steel. Its full length extends past the hallway that crosses it. As for the boxcar, that is a standard 40-foot boxcar. They were in use from the 1940s to 1960s, for what they called single car freight, or single loads. Most interstate trains today are what they call Unit Trains like oil tankers or double-stacked container trains. Those carry standard freight containers so boxcars are much less in use today.
If you ship a lot of freight, rail takes a lot of freight off the roads. Each rail car takes 3 trucks off the road. So a 100-car train takes 300 trucks off the roads. There is a great train station in Los Angeles, Union Station. It is in fine shape despite its age. The Amtrak Pacific Surfliner runs from San Luis Obispo to San Diego with convenient station stops all along the way. 🍻