Western Railroad Discussion > Yreka Western, still running?

What is the current status of Yreka Western? These Google street views from June 2012 suggest it was running at that time.

The most recent revision at Wikipedia in late December 2015 made corrections that also suggest it is still running. But the track looks barely serviceable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yreka_Western_Railroad

Don Strack

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Nope, not running.
Try a search on TO for some pending Court actions.

There is a continuous pair of rails from just past the depot to Montague, outside of that all the rail that could be lifted was sent to scrap. I think it was fenced off in a couple of places but nothing too bad. The switcher is sitting at one of the mills half was down the track. There is a new Fruit Growers Mill right next to the Timber Products (?) Mill. Steam engine appeared to be still locked away, as per Court Order. Last time I drove by was about month ago.

Haven't heard anything new on the various legal activities going on. An update would be interesting.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/16 13:49 by TCnR.

Don, your second picture, all that's left of the rail is the foreground lead to the engine house.

Out

I heard something about the SW8 #21, ex SP 1115, was scrapped recently!
I haven't been able to confirm that.

Mike

So Fruit Growers DID build a new mill in Yreka--great news.  Will they be shipping by rail, or are they asking?

Decent sized mill adjacent to the YW, across from the Timber Products Mill. Both Mills could ship by rail.

Both Mills had decent sized log decks when I drove past at New Years, #12 was parked at Timber Products at the time but had not moved in at least a year. At the time the Siskiyou main was not really being used, haven't heard anything new about them either. They are said to be a M-F operation, when they run they have six-axle power leave Medford and 4 axle power leave Weed, they exchange power at Hornbrook.

coach Wrote:
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> So Fruit Growers DID build a new mill in
> Yreka--great news.  Will they be shipping by
> rail, or are they asking?

I'm sure they'd both ship but the several miles to the CORP main isn't going to happen until someone clears
up the legal mess on the YV. The shippers could go to the STB and demand service which might stir things up
enough to get this thing off dead center.

Out

What little I can find in a hurry suggests that the Fruit Growers mill exists principally to cut small diameter trees and/or other essentially waste materials from logging operations into pallet stock, which is shipped to FGS plants in Visalia, California, for manufacture into fruit pallets.  I suppose there might be some chance a reviatlized YW could compete for this traffic, but I wonder how cost and/or time competitive rail service might be if the line did reopen.  Timber Products, on the other hand, could resume shipping their veneer and peeler cores north to Oregon, but I imagine they would only so do if they can get the same-day delivery CORP provided that landed the traffic in the first place, TP has been burned several times on this in the past, though, once by the tunnel fire and then again when CORP abruptly stopped running over the Siskiyous.  It might take a while to get them back to rail service, if ever.  

All this depends, as someone else pointed out, on getting the various legal issues around the YW resolved.  

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV 

I'd have to go back into the TO posts to be sure, I believe Timber Products was involved in the Funding from the State of Oregon. Timber Products makes furniture quality plywood at it's plants in Southern Oregon. FGS was covered in discussons as well. There has been quite a bit of cutting in the County in the past few months, presume the Employment numbers have improved.

I've spotted the guys working out of Weed to BB a couple of times on Monday mornings and such, spotted the snow plow one morning, lots of cars moving around the Roseburg Plant in Weed but no sightings between Medford and Weed. Once Ryan and the boys get some weekday time they'll get Uncle Bob out there for a report.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/16 08:56 by TCnR.