Most of the year, Niles runs on nostalgia as a marketing device. The antique shops sell "vintage," the depot sells "heritage," and the whole four-block stretch of Niles Boulevard leans on the fact that Charlie Chaplin once filmed here. It works. Tourists come, buy a postcard, eat lunch, leave.
Fall is different. For two months, the train that runs through Niles Canyon actually switches to steam power, the same technology that hauled freight through here in the 1870s. And this year, that seasonal shift is landing next to a genuinely new development: a bakery that opened its doors in July after nearly not opening at all. One is the neighborhood running its oldest working machine on its original fuel. The other is a small business betting that a district built on the past still has room for something that started this summer. Together they say something the antique faire and the gift shops don't: Niles isn't preserved, it's still working.
The Bakery That Almost Didn't Happen
Ashley Wong opened Ashley Wong Sweets at 37825 Niles Boulevard on July 25, 2026. She'd been building toward this since at least 2021, when she competed on season seven of Halloween Baking Championship and told a local reporter that her next goal was a storefront in Fremont. She and her husband Marc had already decided Niles was the right spot.
Marc died in 2025, before the shop existed. Wong has said that after his death she assumed the storefront plan was over, that she didn't want to open one without him. A few months later a friend from church mentioned a space for rent in Niles. She looked at it, met the landlords, and got a call days later saying they'd chosen her.
At the ribbon cutting, Fremont Mayor Raj Salwan presented her with a certificate of recognition. Wong told a reporter covering the opening that finally bringing the bakery to life felt right, especially with Marc there in spirit.
That's the kind of detail an antique shop can't manufacture. Niles markets itself on continuity with the 1910s. What actually proves the district is alive is a new business opening in 2026 for reasons that have nothing to do with tourism nostalgia and everything to do with one person's specific, difficult timeline. The shop is open Friday through Sunday, 10am to 4pm, which puts it squarely inside the same weekend rhythm as everything else on the boulevard.
Why the Trains Are Running on Real Steam Right Now
The Niles Canyon Railway operates on select weekends from March through October, with two departures each day at 10:30am and 1pm from Sunol Station. For most of that season, historic diesel locomotives do the pulling. But Sunday trains run behind steam power specifically during the spring startup and again in September and October, with diesel substituted through the summer months.
That means the two months when Niles leans hardest into its own historical branding, its name literally comes from a 19th century railroad depot, are the same two months the railway backs that branding with the actual equipment. The rest of the year, a diesel engine does the work while everyone calls it a "heritage" experience. Right now, through the end of October, the label matches the machine.
| Season | What pulls the Sunday train |
|---|---|
| Spring (March through May) | Steam |
| Summer | Diesel substituted |
| Fall (September and October) | Steam |
| Late November through December | The Train of Lights, a separate holiday run starting the weekend before Thanksgiving |
The Train of Lights that follows in late November is its own production, with volunteers spending the early fall decorating a consist that by 2025 had grown past 1,000 feet with sixteen passenger cars. But that comes after the steam season ends, which makes right now, this exact stretch of fall, the only window where the ride matches the district's whole reason for existing.
The Museum a Half Block From Where It Actually Happened
The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum sits in the Edison Theater, a century-old nickelodeon building half a block from the site of the old Essanay Studios, where Broncho Billy Anderson and Charlie Chaplin made films in the 1910s. Free tours run Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4pm. Saturday nights, the theater runs actual silent films with live piano accompaniment, the kind of screening format that hasn't meaningfully changed since the building opened.
The museum's strongest credential isn't atmosphere, it's research. Staff historian David Kiehn used the museum's archive work to demonstrate that a film called A Trip Down Market Street, long assumed to have been shot shortly before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, was actually filmed a few days earlier than everyone thought. That finding got picked up by 60 Minutes. It's a small, specific fact, but it's the kind of thing that separates a museum doing real archival work from a museum that's just decorated to look old.
Put next to the bakery and the steam trains, the pattern holds. Niles isn't coasting on the appearance of history. The equipment runs on the right fuel in the right season, the film historian did the work to correct the historical record, and the new business owner built something real instead of leasing a themed storefront. None of it is performance.
The Saturday Habit That Doesn't Make the Postcards
Every Saturday, 9am to 1pm, the Fremont Farmers Market sets up in the parking lot of the Niles Historic District Plaza. It's not an event with a start date or an anniversary. It's just the weekly thing that happens whether or not anyone's writing about Niles that week, and it's the piece of the neighborhood's actual rhythm that a one-time visitor to the antique faire would never see.
That faire, by the way, just wrapped for the year. The Niles Main Street Association ran its Antique Faire and Flea Market on the last Sunday of August, a tradition now well past its 60th year, drawing around 200 vendors into Niles Town Plaza for a single day. It's the district's biggest single day of foot traffic. But a once-a-year flea market and a fifty-two-week farmers market tell different stories about the same place. One is the thing Niles shows off. The other is the thing Niles actually does.
What This Adds Up to Right Now
If you already live near Niles Boulevard, the useful version of this list looks like:
- Stop by Ashley Wong Sweets Friday through Sunday, 10am to 4pm, at 37825 Niles Boulevard
- Catch a steam-powered Sunday run on the Niles Canyon Railway before the season shifts to the Train of Lights after Thanksgiving weekend
- Walk down to the Essanay museum on a Saturday for the free noon to 4pm tour, or come back that evening for the silent film screening with live piano
- Treat the Saturday farmers market in the Plaza lot as the actual weekly pulse of the district, not the flea market as an isolated event
None of this requires believing Niles is stuck in 1913. It requires noticing that for a couple of months a year, and every single Saturday underneath that, the district's oldest claims about itself happen to be true.
If you're already living in this corner of Fremont and curious about what else is shifting in the neighborhood beyond the boulevard, Glen D'souza keeps closer tabs on Fremont than most. Schedule a free consultation whenever you want to talk about it.
