Steam & Excursion > The Homecoming Of A Steam Locomotive Never Looked Better!

Few steam locomotives get the chance to return to the railroad that once made them famous.  Here is one time that such an event actually was able to happen!

By June 1962 McCloud River Railroad 90-ton 2-8-2 #19 had been gone from that line serving the nearby Yreka Western for nearly a decade.  No one eve thought they would see her back on McCloud Rails.  However here she is doing just that.

In June 1962 #19 was brought back down to Mt. Shasta on the SP on her own wheels and the switched over to the MCRR rails for an excursion with her old stablemate, MCRR 2-6-2 #25.  The special even was for railfans and was a big hit as we can see here in this smokey runby.

Everyone thought this kid of Reunion would never happen again.  Wrong.  In the mid 1990-s when the McCloud Railway's new owner wanted to gauge the interest in returning steam to the McCloud he arranged to have the Yreka Western once again send down #19 on the SP on her own wheels to run a weekend of excursions on the McCloud.  The interest shown was great enough that Mr. Forbis decided to spend the time and money to refurbish #25 back to operation on the McCloud.

This family reunion had a happy ending.

Martin



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/18 01:12 by LoggerHogger.

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Couple slight corrections to paragraph 3 Martin.  The date was 1962 and locomotive #19.  The exact date of the trip was June 9th.  #19 was brought down to Mt. Shasta City from Montague on the SP alone and I have pictures I took of her at Weed and Black Butte running light without a pilot or a caboose.  My latest pictures of her were July 28th of this year in the back shop of Age of Steam Roundhouse, Sugarcreek, Ohio, with her complete fiirbox being rebuilt.  When they finish the rebuild, she will be lettered as Oregon Pacific & Eastern #19, and her tender is already so lettered.  
         TomE .   

I think Martin is right. The 19 was there in the 90s and the locomotive was turned. The Yreka folks were worried that the locomotive wasn't turned the right way to go back to Yreka.
Also, look at the color of the smokebox paint.
Luke

Posted from Android

Martin meant to say 1962 in both the second and third photographs, the 1992 date in the third paragraph is a typo.  The second repeat event happened in the spring of 1994, and the #25 was languishing in the car storage building and owned by the Great Western Museum by that point.  The 1962 double header with the #19 was the #25's first excursion train after being restored to service. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV