Western Railroad Discussion > Yes, California has prairies, too

Saturday afternoon. Two UP trains meet at the Mount Hebron siding, MP 394 on the Black Butte Sub. The location is south of the town of Macdoel in Siskiyou County CA. This was one of those times when I wish I had a longer lens.

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Along US 97 eh.

Last September my dad and I were taking a reefer truck load of apples down to Albertsons in Irvine, CA and we got stopped by a northbound manifest at the east end of Dorris.

After taking time to get thru twisting Dorris and having to stop at the Agriculture Inspection Station we finally were headed south on US 97 and we caught up to and passed a southbound manifest that had met the northbound here at Dorris. The train had red signals ahead of it on the single track. Interesting, never seen anything like that before.
That train crew had a long slow trip ahead of em.

Andy
Marshall, WA

Actually, this is southeast of US 97 by about four miles. From Dorris to Macdoel, the track parallels Hwy 97, but from there they angle almost due south. The route goes inland across some pretty desolate Forest Service land through Kegg, Bray and Penoyer sidings before returning back to flirt with the highway near Grass Lake.

frcanyonsub Wrote:
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> Actually, this is southeast of US 97 by about four
> miles. From Dorris to Macdoel, the track parallels
> Hwy 97, but from there they angle almost due
> south. The route goes inland across some pretty
> desolate Forest Service land through Kegg, Bray
> and Penoyer sidings before returning back to flirt
> with the highway near Grass Lake.

I got you....Thanks for the clarification.
My Benchmark Map of California shows just that with some as you mentioned desolate dotted forest service roads and a few lakes.
Andy
Marshall, WA

BTW> The train dispatcher route covering from Crescent, OR to Dunsmuir, CA is pretty neat also.

If anybody has the time to check out the Kegg/Bray area, it is well worth the effort. Remote is a good way to describe it. Penoyer used to be a good, safe place to boonie camp and not get hassled.

The Old State Highway was clear and relatively dry Friday night and Saturday. I made the entire loop from Hwy 97 to Bray and down to Macdoel pretty quick. However, the snowpack everywhere was about 8-10 inches deep. I am going to check in now and then with the FS station there to see when the offroad routes are clear. I was thinking that it would be a melluva hess if UP had a derailment in there. A snowcat would make it but otherwise they would have to plow out an access road and the Forest Service would not be very happy.

The Old State highway is a grand name for it, in the spring it's a few miles of mud with ditches on either side. When the area drys out they run a grader through there, makes it nice for a few weeks and then it goes washboard. There's some real nice areas in there, actually fish in the stream and some outdoorsy types in the area. The campground on the north/east end sees some business and I've had a few questionable situations out there as well. There are still some raw areas in Siskiyou County and this is one of them.
Did you make it into Kegg? Sounds like you had fun, that's the most important part.

Cienega, perhaps??..

Why would you need a long lens for this shot... It's as good as it gets...It's a great shot, That's what I think...
Have fun 73, C U L...JayC...

Jack T Charley
Clackamas, OR

TCnR Wrote:
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>
> Did you make it into Kegg? Sounds like you had
> fun, that's the most important part.

I don't think even a 4WD would have made it to Kegg. That snow ranged from 10 inches to a foot in the deeper areas.

I drove down the road from Bray one year in August and yeah, washboard all the way. I think my speed Friday night was about double that of the August trip. Someone really did a nice job of grading off the snow.

Yeah, it was quite a road trip!

Yeh, ditto Jack's words. This is how I would have tried to shoot it also. A longer lens is just going to give you a broadside of locomotives, and show nothing of the scene.

"Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again."

BLJ