Steam & Excursion > Another California Fire Destroys Narrow Gauge History!

The hot temperatures this time of year coupled with 3 years of drought in California have been the cause for a record number of wildfires in California. Unfortunately, besides the risk to locals and the damage to timber and property, these fires have destroyed some irreplaceable railroad history.

The latest fire, the King Fire in the Central Sierras, has now overridden much of the old Michigan-California timber lands on the narrow gauge railroad right-of-way of that operation. Yesterdays fire map here shows that both the site of Old Pino and now Pino Grande itself have been devastated by this fire.

Pino Grande was the location for the Mich-Calif. mill and railroad shops for the narrow gauge logging operation which lasted until 1951. The first photo shows Mich-Calif 2-truck Shay #5 at the Pino Grande Mill in the 1940's.

Last year most all of the West Side Lumber timber lands and narrow gauge railroad right-of-way was destroyed by the Rim Fire leaving only charred remains behind. This years fires are taking their own toll on what remains of narrow gauge logging history in the Sierras.


Martin



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/14 04:00 by LoggerHogger.

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Every town, village & hamlet, situated in any western forest, seems to be living on borrowed time.

LoggerHogger Wrote:
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> Last year most all of the West Side Lumber timber
> lands and narrow gauge railroad right-of-way was
> destroyed by the Rim Fire leaving only charred
> remains behind. This years fires are taking their
> own toll on what remains of narrow gauge logging
> history in the Sierras.

I not quite sure I understand...what was actually destroyed? I get that the trees are gone in the fire, they will grow back (the lumber companies that operated the narrow guage did just as much damage with clear cutting and such). What I don't get is how the right-of-way was destroyed. Where there wooden bridges, culvert, etc still in place? I would think that the fire couldn't have destroyed the cuts and fills of the right-of-way. Once the trees and underbrush return, it will probably look much like it did before the King Fire.

The West Side had many artifacts including bridges, water tank supports wrecked car parts and miles of ties that marked the old logging railroad. These and other similar remnants were destroyed.

Martin

LoggerHogger Wrote:
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> The West Side had many artifacts including
> bridges, water tank supports wrecked car parts and
> miles of ties that marked the old logging
> railroad. These and other similar remnants were
> destroyed.
>
> Martin


Water tank supports?(I guess you're talking the concrete supports?) Wrecked car parts? Old ties in the ground? I'm sorry Martin, I'm not seeing the real historical loss or important value here. Yah, it's too bad about any fire, but I gotta go with BNSF6400 on this one.

What's sad is the loss of so much good timber, and the good jobs that go with it. I can't stand the treehuggers and they're "we're never wrong!" attitudes about forest management. It's like me telling them they can't do anything to their property, even if it's reasonable and good. Well, now their precious forest is gone, the fire is so hot it's sterilizing the soil (and maybe re-growth much, much harder), so just how is that good in their eyes? But who cares--the damage is done.

I've been out to Cable, on the southern side of the American River gorge where the cables crossed to carry railcars high over that canyon. Mostly just concrete remains, but some wooden artifacts here and there. Sad to see it all burn. LoggerHogger is simply stating that those small remaining wooden pieces are now gone, too, making the history of these lines fade even further into the background...

The loss of vegetation for a season or two also encourages problems with drainage and rain water run-off. The old RoW will probably become a run-off path with the additional water cutting into the roadbed and probably re-sculpting it, as Mom Nature tends to do. Any bridges or culverts become clogged, with run-off siltation or fire damaged structures collapsing, run-off tends to go around it and cut a new path...and so it goes.

I'm a managed forests kinda guy. I don't like clear cuts but fire damaged forests are not so good either. There's always talk about the natural cycle including fire, but there's many factors to that well beyond a simple discussion.

I just heard on the news that they caught the firebug who set the fire down east of Sacto! I guess he admitted to it already. He's got a good sized criminal record from what I've heard. And a few firefighters have been hurt too!.. I say "BURN HIM AT THE STAKE!" Enough of this B.S.!

LoggerHogger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The West Side had many artifacts including
> bridges, water tank supports wrecked car parts and
> miles of ties that marked the old logging
> railroad. These and other similar remnants were
> destroyed.
>
> Martin

Martin

They kept the Rim fire burn area closed all summer this year. My Jeep is ready to go when they open it up in hopes that the fire cleared much over growth. It was closing in on everything. Hope to find the heavy metal artifacts that should have been exposed. May be a lost donkey engine or two.

Ron

coach Wrote:

> I can't stand the
> treehuggers and they're "we're never wrong!"
> attitudes about forest management.

Take a look at aerial photos of the area around Pino Grande, and the patchwork of clear-cuts of varying ages. It sure doesn't look like an area where "tree huggers" held much sway.

http://goo.gl/maps/0v7oY

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> coach Wrote:
>
> > I can't stand the
> > treehuggers and they're "we're never wrong!"
> > attitudes about forest management.
>
> Take a look at aerial photos of the area around
> Pino Grande, and the patchwork of clear-cuts of
> varying ages. It sure doesn't look like an area
> where "tree huggers" held much sway.
>
> http://goo.gl/maps/0v7oY

Yes, that was 70 years ago when that area was logged extensively, and is somewhat logged now, but the Michigan-California lumber mill has been torn down due to logging restrictions, which is where most of this timber went. Huge loss.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/14 23:08 by coach.

coach Wrote:

> Yes, that was 70 years ago when that area was
> logged extensively, and is somewhat logged now,
> but the Michigan-California lumber mill has been
> torn down due to logging restrictions, which is
> where most of this timber went.

According to this, the rough-cut mill at Pino Grande closed in 1949 when one of the cableway towers burned (i.e. fires happened even when the area was more aggressively logged), and the finishing mill at Camino closed due to the collapse in housing starts when the economy tanked in 2009:

http://www.trainweb.org/foothill/caminomill.html

Tree huggers cause drought?

Sierran forests have changed significantly in the past 70 years and dramatically in the past 30. The focus on controlling all forest fires, coupled with lack of investment in fuel management (responsible silvicultural thinning) by the federal government, the funding arrangements of USDA Forest Service as linked to wildfire suppression costs, have all changed the way the forests are managed and what the forest is today.

We have different species composition, significantly higher fuel loads per acre, higher crown density, and forests that in general "use" more water than they used to due to those factors.

Research by the Sierra Nevada Institute (UC Merced) as well as the Pacific South West Region (USFS) and the school of Forestry at U.C. Berkeley have indicated there is compelling need to change the way we manage forests.

There are some "tree huggers" who oppose all management but other more responsible environmentalists support the fuel thinning programs. Senator Dianne Feinstein has proposed a program of fuel thinning that has proved successful in the Upper Feather River watershed to be applied to the rest of west slope Sierra forests. There may be bipartisan legislation to move this along.

In the meantime, years of questionable management protocols, lack of federal funding, and a lack of understanding of the Sierras by far too many in our political leadership - in both parties - have left us with an explosive situation in the Sierras.

Last years Rim Fire was the larges forest fire in the recorded history of the Sierra Nevada range. That fire followed a series of fires in the Tuolumne Watershed dating back to the Wright's Creek burn of 1950 and progressed for decades to what we thought was a "peak" in the 150,000 acre Complex Fire of 1987. Unfortunately, even following the Complex fire, lessons were ignored and the same pattern of neglect and "walk away" management led us to the next progression - the Rim Fire.

The matter of Sierra forest management and getting the forests back to a state of sustainable watersheds is a work in progress. In the meantime, what we have now is certainly aggravated by three very dry years, but is less a result of climate change than other factors.

As someone who has worked in these forests and tramped on the old right of ways as well, it is a shame to see what is happening. For now, lets just hope that the wild-land fire fighters and air attack pilots who are out there in harms way, come back and that the people and homes they are protecting are also safe.

There will be plant of work to do when the last flame is dead. If you want to help, tell your Congressman just because the smoke is gone, the problem isn't.

John

I find it deeply unfortunate that there are some of you who don't understand the value of artifacts along old railroad right of ways that are endangered by fire, vandals, metal thieves, and unethical collectors. First you must understand that only a small fraction of the railroads in this country were ever accurately mapped at the time they existed, and that a large amount of the old grades have yet to be discovered. Only one other person that I know has mapped more old railroad grades in the Pacific Northwest than myself. I've explored countless miles of old grade, photographed many many old relics of the past large and small. Each of those relics has told part of the story of what once had existed. Be it water pipe running through a former logging camp, a locomotive spark arrestor laying crushed and mangled beside the former logging railroad, or a big steam winch at the top of a former incline. As I wade through the brush on a former grade, those artifacts help tell me if the grade was a cat trail, early truck road, or one built for track. It's very rare to find intact trestles due to the nature of the forest. As the forest regrew over the past 80~100 years, less successful trees withered and died. Those trees eventually yield to wind and gravity and fall through the rotted remains of the timber trestles that once spanned everything from small gulches to mountain valleys. So any time I've been exploring a grade and came across a pile or a bent of a trestle, I've felt blessed just to have found such a rare artifact.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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