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McCloud River Railroad - McCloud Railway
- Shortline Railroad |
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The McCloud River
Railroad, McCloud Railway spanned more than one hundred years and nearly one hundred
miles (with trackage rights) through some of the most beautiful, and
remote forest land in the state of California. Headquartered in the city
of McCloud at the base of majestic Mount Shasta, it is a railroad that
has stood the test of time, in a land that time forgot. Yet more than
one hundred years after it's inception the railroad teeters on the brink
of extinction with most of it's track set to be abandoned, it is time to
look back on a railroad whose sole purpose was to haul timber over a
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Clicking on any
picture on this site will produce a larger size version
Site Update Information |
| All Aboard!, For an
informational tour of the McCloud River Railroad. |
| This website is by
no means meant to be a complete compendium of the McCloud River
Railroad and McCloud Railway. There are more complete sites available on the internet, you
will find them listed in the "Interchange" section. Also I am by no
means the most experienced, knowledgeable, or experienced person when it
comes to this railroad. I have visited it a handful of times and ridden
it just once. But having spent a lot of time in, on and around Mount Shasta
as a child, when I later learned more of this railroad as an adult,
fifteen years ago, I immediately became enamored with it. Nothing
in the intervening course of time has dulled that affection.
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Perhaps, unlike other websites you
won't see a lot of train action pictures, because for me, the railroad
embodies the quiet isolation of the deep woods, which stand hours and
days in utter silence, only to have that silence shattered by the
breathing behemoths of a pair of General Electric Motor Divisions
SD-38's groaning with a load of lumber and various other commodities,
only to once again be returned to it's silence in minutes after the
train passes. In the 1950's it would have been Baldwin diesels and logs
going to the various sawmills, or prior to that Baldwin steamers
hustling the ever renewable resource of logs and lumber to market. But
what ever the motive power, the excitement would last for mere minutes,
and then the solitude of the vast pine forest would again surround you
again, unbroken save for a ribbon of light weight rail and a strip of
lava ballast.
I hope you enjoy your trip through
the Mount Shasta Wilderness!
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Looking
Down into the Bartle Area |
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#25 With a
Load |
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Solitude |
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All photo's, unless otherwise noted,
are credited to Craig Nolan, Please
E-mail for permission before use
*Images Courtesy Of The McCloud
Heritage Junction Museum Please see interchange page for more info on this.
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