As most of you may or may not know .. freight operations of the YWRR have been less than 40 percent of normal since tunnel 13 caught fire in November of 2003. This has caused a tremendous strain on the owner of the railroad. The president and CEO (Troy Hubbard) disappeared last September and has not been located to date. Hubbard's partner Jim Sanders has been struggling to keep the railroad alive, but the lack of funds to meet all the obligations has caused Mr. Sanders to place the railroad for sale. (It takes over $15K per month to just break even and the income since the tunnel fire has been $5K at best!). Rather than loose the railroad completely, the court has granted the company be placed into receivership .. effective 4 January 2005. The administrator of the receivership is Mr. O.J. LeBaron or Yreka, California. The railroad remains on the market for sale and we also remain "The Little Railroad That Refuses To Die". I do not have any information on how this will impact the Blue Goose Steam Excursion for the 2005 season, but I have the feeling that our steam operation will have to take a back seat until we can resume normal freight traffic. The Central Oregon & Pacific projects the opening date for tunnel 13 as sometime in March 2005.
Bill- I was just about to post an inquiry about the Tunnel. From what I've been following, weather in the area may have been rather lousy. So am wondering how that has impacted progress. I hope that this court protection will allow the company to try and survive. Have they placed any time limitations? Boxcab E50
I don't know any particulars about the receivership status. But, when the railroad went into receivership in 1935 it lasted 13 years. I guess it goes on until the railroad becomes solvent again .. or, abandoned (?). Snow in the Siskiyous? We have about 4 feet here at my house that we have been digging out from all day long. I have looked at the Oregon Dept. of Transportation highway cams on the Siskiyou Summit and Exit 3, which is adjacent to tunnel 13. It doesn't look like they had as much snow as we. They have some fairly heavy machinery up there so I feel confident they are moving the snow as needed.
Fitz .. nothing has been done with #19 since 2003 because what funds we had to work in it had to be used for payroll and other expenses after the tunnel caught fire.
Yes, but has not been used for anything since 2003 ... still not running right so they continue to use "old reliable" SW-8
That's an understatement !!! I guess because it sat in storage so long at the Portola Museum most of the electrical contacts, (and there's a million of them) became corroded. In addition to that, the govenor was bad. We have many man hours in this loco trying to get it to run right. It runs better now than when we got her .. but she's still unpredictable. I used this loco to pull the Blue Goose Excursion train a few times in 2003. Twice, during that period the locomotive took off on me like it was put in notch 8 and was really difficult to stop it... scarry!! One other time, it stopped running all together and stranded all of the passengers at the Shasta River bridge. We had to truck everyone back to the depot. The MRS1 runs bad, but it sure does ride nice!
Bill- Who actually owns the MRS1 these days? I have another YWRR question for you- In decades long ago, how did the RR control any train movements. It would obviously have been "dark territory." So, timetable? Bulletin? Train orders? I have seen examples of train orders from tiny operations. So am wondering if the YWRR ever used them? Boxcab E50
The YWRR owns the MRS1. I have seen copies of timetables from early l900s so I assume they used them. We still use timetables and bullitins to this day.
Bill- If you ever see another older ETT, could you please check, and see if it mentions train orders, an operator, etc? Boxcab E50
