Steam & Excursion > 3 Steam Locomotives Gather At Lookout, CA In 1999!

Lookout, California is an interesting railroad location. Located on the Great Northern extension from Oregon into California, it is several miles north of the connection with the Western Pacific at Bieber.

Lookout is most famous for it "connection" with the McCloud River RR. While the McCloud did not own the track that connected with the GN at Lookout, the McCloud did operate it's trains down to Lookout from the end of it's track at Hambone. The line from Hambone to Lookout was always owned by the BN but the McCloud was given operating right over this connection.

June 1999 saw some interesting steam locomotives gather at Lookout one sunny afternoon. The California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, CA was hosting another of it's "Railfairs" and some 25 steam locomotives from around the Country had been invited.

2 of the invited engines were SP 4449 and Mount Emily Shay #1, both coming in from Oregon. Since the 90 ton Shay would need to be hauled down on a flatcar, it only made sense that I would have her added to the Daylight consist when 4449 stopped for the night at my home town of Bend, OR. Early the next morning, with the idler cars positioned fore and aft of the Shay we whistled off and headed south.

Jeff Forbis, owner of the McCloud Ry knew of our route down through the Inside Gateway and he planned an event of his own to coincide with our trains movement through the area. McCloud Ry ALCO 2-6-2 #25 was fired up and a special excursion train left McCloud that same morning to meet us as we passed through Lookout on our route south.

Jeff had told me of his plan to have #25 and it's train meet us at Lookout. I passed this information to our Daylight Crew and we then made plans for a brief stop to let the crews from each train get off their engines and greet each other. Here you will see the results of this brief but memorable gathering of steam engines at Lookout, CA.

After a few minutes snapping photos and shaking hands we soon re-boarded the Daylight and whistled off to resume our jouney south. Malen Johnson on McCloud #25 gave us a whislte salute himself as we daparted and he prepared to turn his train and head back to McCloud.

In just a few minutes both trains with all 3 steam locomotives and their hundreds of passengers had departed Lookout leaving the only sounds left to be the gentle summer wind rustling through the pine trees at this remote railroad location.


Martin



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/13 04:45 by LoggerHogger.

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Another wonderful page from the Martin Hansen book of memories. As an East coaster, I take great interest in your stories. The towns, the names, the railroads mean almost nothing to this easterner, but your writing is very clear that one does not need inside information of the event. Thanks for doing that. And slowly, I am building an understanding of steam in the Northwest.

Another great illustrated story!

Steve Mitchell
http://www.yardgoatimages.com

How does one go about simply tossing a shay on a flatcar for a weekend fair? Can't imagine that would be very cheap.

Just doesn't get any cooler than that. It's good to have connections...and a steam engine or two.
...oh and your own railroad.

Well, first we did not "toss" the Shay on the flat car. Here is how we ramped her up.

The Railfair was not just a weekend it was 2 weeks long.

Martin

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LoggerHogger Wrote:
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> Lookout is most famous for it "connection" with
> the McCloud River RR. While the McCloud did not
> own the track that connected with the GN at
> Lookout, the McCloud did operate it's trains down
> to Lookout from the end of it's track at Hambone.
> The line from Hambone to Lookout was always owned
> by the BN but the McCloud was given operating
> right over this connection.

Have you been there lately? Sad to say, it's all pretty much abandoned and ripped up.

And this was only the beginning of quite an adventure. Martin, I don't know how or when you guys got Mt. Emily 1 on the rails for the parade into CSRM, but there she was, joining 4449 and other steamers entering the CSRM grounds. I think the "temporary" diamonds were in use then. Sometime during the Railfair there was a "drag race" which had been hyped on this very board between Mt. Emily 1 and Graham County 1925, the battle of the Shays. It didn't come off exactly as planned thanks to some gummint regulations, but it did happen. Early in that Railfair, an amazing group of locos coupled together and headed south where they all blew down and were serviced, the ATSF 3751, SP 4449, UP 3985, and UP 844 and a few diseasels. We will probably never see another Railfair at Sacramento, but that one was very memorable.

unseenthings Wrote:
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> How does one go about simply tossing a shay on a
> flatcar for a weekend fair? Can't imagine that
> would be very cheap.

Always with the negative vibes!

Thanks for sharing, Martin.

nycman Wrote:
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Early in that Railfair, an amazing
> group of locos coupled together and headed south
> where they all blew down and were serviced, the
> ATSF 3751, SP 4449, UP 3985, and UP 844 and a few
> diseasels. We will probably never see another
> Railfair at Sacramento, but that one was very
> memorable.

Jim:

I came out for the Railfair and the NRHS/R & LHS Convention. One of my favorite rail events ever! I even enjoyed the diesels!!

For those interested in an in-depth history of the Hambone to Lookout line, I wrote one that is scheduled to be published by the Great Northern Railroad Historical Society as one of their "reference sheets" in next month's edition of The Goat.

Unless something has changed in the last year, a little shy of the first six miles of the line west from Lookout is still in place.

Thank you for the photos...one of those events that will never happen again. I have a few pictures of that trip up on McCloud Rails at the following link...

http://www.trainweb.org/mccloudrails/PassengerOperations/25-Lookout1999.html

I wish I would have been able to make it for that trip...

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Fun photos, I remember hearing about this mini-event. Railfair '99 was absolutely awesome, hope they can do something like that again.

Nathan

This was my first trip to the Highline(BNSF Gateway Sub) to chase anything north of Westwood.

A little advice from a friend and the news posted on an email list that this 3-steam loco event would happen at Lookout meant an extra day added to the chase down the FRC. I stayed at the Bieber motel(only the dumb(me) or hardy people stay there!) and got up early to find Lookout. I got there many hours early and figured I would just shoot what ever when by while I waited. For the first hour or two I was the only person there. I got to poke around the few RR related buildings there and a decent sized bridge on the BNSF just north of the Jct.

Then I noticed a few cars had arrived. They kept asking when the steam train would appear. By the time the McCloud special arrived I would conservatively guess there were 200 people on the ground. Nearly all who got there via car were from the Bieber-Adin-McArthur-Fall River Mills area. It seems that the local BNSF MOW gang had spread the word there would two live steam engines in Lookout that day. Just about everyone I talked to said they knew someone on the MOW crew.

There was maybe 5-10 non-local railfans there that didn't arrive via either train.

Mike Leland