Steam & Excursion > McCloud River #22, Cradle to Grave

If history had progressed according to original plans the McCloud River Lumber Company would have finished logging the timber available on its own lands sometime around 1935, at which time the show would have been over and McCloud today would have probably been another abandoned former sawmill camp in the woods of northeastern California instead of the charming town catering to the tourist trade that it is today.  That arc of history abruptly changed direction in 1919 when McCloud sold the bulk of its virgin timberlands, some 70,920 acres north of the Medicine Lake Highlands volcano, to the Weed Lumber Company.  McCloud instead sent its loggers into the first of what would eventually be four large blocks of standing timber purchased from The Red River Lumber Company that would sustain the McCloud mill and town for many decades beyond the original projected life span.  The first of these timber sales covered some 25,000 acres of land in the area around what is today Hambone, California.  Red River followed that up in 1924 with the Bear Creek Sale, which conveyed to McCloud the harvesting rights to 87,000 acres of prime forest land south of the first sale.

The Bear Creek Sale contained enough timber to sustain the McCloud River operations for many years, and that stability allowed the companies to go shopping for new equipment.  The McCloud River Railroad's locomotive roster received a lot of the initial attention, especially the collection of five small and old 2-6-2 Prairies and two 90-ton Shays that made up the bulk of the woods power.  The railroad elected to replace most of these with six new modern Prairie types that would be equally at home either on the logging railroads or on the main line.  Long time McCloud favorite Baldwin got the order for the first two in 1924.  The modern machines had 17x24 cylinders, weighed in at 132,000 pounds, and developed 23,700 pounds of tractive effort.  This initial pair cost the railroad over $27,000 each, including purchase, freight, and break in costs.  

In some ways it's amazing McCloud was able to buy new locomotives at all.  Lumber prices had stayed high through most of the 1910s and into the early 1920s, which prompted a lot of new sawmills to be built.  Unfortunately prices especially in pine markets crashed right as a lot of this new production came on line, and by 1924 the lumber industry as a whole was in a deep depression a good five years before the rest of the economy.  Perhaps in light of the economic conditions McCloud ordered the remaining four planned Prairies from Alco at a substantially cheaper price than Baldwin could offer.  The McCloud River Railroad #22 was the first of the four; it and its twin #23 had the same overall specifications as the Baldwins purchased the prior year except that they weighed in at 130,000 lbs. and cost $18,450 each, plus $1,854.62 freight and $185.53 break-in.  Two larger machines (19x24 cylinders, weight 144,000 lbs, tractive effort 28,800 pounds) purchased new from Alco later in 1925 at a price of $21,475 each plus $2,103.89 freight and $93.25 break in rounded out these new acquisitions.

The McCloud River Railroad's office issued the Authorization for Expenditure to purchase the #22 on 1 April 1925.  Alco completed the machine in May, and the railroad placed it in service in July.  The locomotive as built had two cross-compound air pumps, one on each side.  The railroad's shops shortly replaced the pump on the engineer's side with a single pump, then removed the right side pump altogether a few years after that.  The biggest mechanical addition to the locomotive was a powered reverse, mounted on top of the running board, and a fire pump mounted initially on the fireman's side running board and then later the tender.  The #22 put in thirty years of faithful service hauling logs, lumber, and other traffic through the woods of northeastern California before log trucks and diesel electrics finally rendered it surplus.  It would not be as fortunate as the far more famous #25, as the railroad sold it to South San Francisco Scrap Metals Company on 16 November 1955.           

Attached hereto are a cradle to grave snapshot of this locomotive, starting with the builder's portrait.  The next image is the #22 in Pondosa, California, on 13 September 1948 during the prime of its life.  The final image is of the #22 in the South San Francisco Scrap Metals yard on 11 December 1955 right before the final end. 

Thanks for looking!

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/20 06:44 by JDLX.

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A wonderful description of this locomotive - appreciate the detail and the work that went into this concise story! B

Here is MCRR #22 looking a bit more tired than in Jeff's photo and shortly before she headed out to the scrapper.

As a side note to Jeff's comment on the McCloud buying the Red River Lumber land, a few years ago when I sold the McCloud Ry for Jeff Forbis, I discovered that all the right-of-way in the Burney area was still vested in the Walker family.  It was the Walker family that founded the Red River Lumber Co.  Each of the deeds to the right-of-way had the names of about 30 Walkers as owner still to this day.

Martin



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/20 11:46 by LoggerHogger.

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In photos 2 and 3 of the fireman's side of McCRR #22, a higher handrail has been installed on brackets from the original handrail alongside the hump in the running board over the cross-compound air compressor.  But what is the purpose the the crescent-moon-edge sheet metal piece at 45 degrees, alongside the smokestack? Was this to support the cylindrical basket spark arrestor, which must have had hinges on the fireman's side?

Thanks! - Doug Debs

This shows you the support bracket for the spark arrestor in use on MCRR #24.  All McCloud steam locomotives had these installed.

Martin



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/20 13:07 by LoggerHogger.

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Thanks Jeff and Martin for the McCloud history and great photos.

1939 to be exact. All MR power received the netted stack caps and SP-style spark arrestors inside the smoke boxes over a two or three month period in that year.

And the Walker family is still one of the larger single private land owners in California. Fruit Growers Supply Company, who bought a lot of the Walker family land with the Red River company, is right there with them. Walker family contracts management of their timberlands to Beatty & Associates while FGS maintains their own staff of foresters and managers.

One other interesting story, when McCloud River built the line to Burney they ran into initial problems getting permission to cross the state highways, especially with the private logging railroads that once extended south of Burney. The opposition ended when one of the timber company reps pointed out covenants in the Caltrans right-of-way deeds in which they had agreed to allow such crossings when they obtained their highway easements from the Walkers in the first place.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Posted from iPhone

JDLX Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 1939 to be exact. All MR power received the
> netted stack caps and SP-style spark arrestors
> inside the smoke boxes over a two or three month
> period in that year.
>
> And the Walker family is still one of the larger
> single private land owners in California. Fruit
> Growers Supply Company, who bought a lot of the
> Walker family land with the Red River company, is
> right there with them. Walker family contracts
> management of their timberlands to Beatty &
> Associates while FGS maintains their own staff of
> foresters and managers.
>
> One other interesting story, when McCloud River
> built the line to Burney they ran into initial
> problems getting permission to cross the state
> highways, especially with the private logging
> railroads that once extended south of Burney. The
> opposition ended when one of the timber company
> reps pointed out covenants in the Caltrans
> right-of-way deeds in which they had agreed to
> allow such crossings when they obtained their
> highway easements from the Walkers in the first
> place.
>
> Jeff Moore
> Elko, NV
>
> Posted from iPhone

What is an "SP-style spark arrestor", be as technical as possible.

S.P. oil burning locomotives used a vertical cylindrical netting basket that covered the gap between the exhaust nozzle on top of the cylinder casting, directly under the smokestack) and the petticoat pipe (the flared venturi continuation of the smokestack inside the smokebox).  The netting basket was roughly the same size and shape as the exterior spark arrestor used on McCloud River RR locomotives. Basket material was "Draftac" netting made from tough steel wire, flattened at the crossover points to lock the wires in place.

Coalburners had a lot of cinder cutting (abrasive wear) on the netting, so they used Draftac made with .135" OD steel wire, with 3/16" x 3/4" openings. I believe that S.P. oilburners used Draftac made from finer-gauge wire (roughly 1/16" OD), but I don't have an exact size.

More info on Draftac, and why this opening size was best, is in the book "Fire Losses Locomotive Sparks" by L.W.Wallace, Barr-Erhardt Press, New York, 1923.  The book is available as a downloadable PDF at https://books.google.com/books?id=My9r1euSTrgC&amp;pg=PA189&amp;lpg=PA189&amp;dq=draftac+netting&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=Eg1jiOaRit&amp;sig=ACfU3U0ZPGHzJVrBrRQ-MQw0l5OSbkAlew&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwj-yJvz-u3nAhVWIDQIHW9kCRkQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=draftac%20netting&amp;f=false <phorum break> <phorum break> - Doug Debs




 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/20 17:03 by DWDebs/2472.

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Very nice post, Jeff.  Great detail as I always expect from you.

Lee Hower - Sacramento

DWDebs/2472 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> S.P. oil burning locomotives used a vertical
> cylindrical netting basket that covered the gap
> between the exhaust nozzle on top of the cylinder
> casting, directly under the smokestack) and the
> petticoat pipe (the flared venturi continuation of
> the smokestack inside the smokebox).  The netting
> basket was roughly the same size and shape as the
> exterior spark arrestor used on McCloud River RR
> locomotives. Basket material was "Draftac" netting
> made from tough steel wire, flattened at the
> crossover points to lock the wires in place.
>
> Coalburners had a lot of cinder cutting (abrasive
> wear) on the netting, so they used Draftac made
> with .135" OD steel wire, with 3/16" x 3/4"
> openings. I believe that S.P. oilburners used
> Draftac made from finer-gauge wire (roughly 1/16"
> OD), but I don't have an exact size.
>
> More info on Draftac, and why this opening size
> was best, is in the book "Fire Losses Locomotive
> Sparks" by L.W.Wallace, Barr-Erhardt Press, New
> York, 1923.  The book is available as a
> downloadable PDF at
> https://books.google.com/books?id=My9r1euSTrgC&amp;pg=
> PA189&lpg=PA189&dq=draftac+netting&source=bl&ots=E
> g1jiOaRit&sig=ACfU3U0ZPGHzJVrBrRQ-MQw0l5OSbkAlew&h
> l=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-yJvz-u3nAhVWIDQIHW9kCRkQ6AE
> wAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=draftac%20netting&f=false
>
> - Doug Debs

Thank you for the detailed response.  I've heard references to SP spark arresting devices, but never heard exactly what it was made of.  I've heard of some CA locomotives having "basket spark arrestors".  I imagine thisis what they were referring to.  

I'll also say thanks to Doug.  I knew the arrestors involved some form of netting in the smokebox but did not know much beyond that.  What I can say is that McCloud did a bunch of similar work to all of their power in 1939, which included the following:

Install stack nettings. June through August.  Cost $76.84 for the #26 and #27 and $76.83 for all others. 
Install "SP style spark arrestors" in July and August, cost $132.00 for the #26 and #27 and $132.01 for all others. 
Install rear drafts and hoppers in June and July on all power except for the newly arrived #16.  Cost $40.47 each. 

I would like to know what it was about the #26 and #27 that drove up the costs of the spark control equipment by a penny each. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Thank you for the pictures and story, Jeff.  That is one burly Prarie.

Z

Does FRUIT GROWER SUPPLY still make and use wooden produce crates??  Everything I see seems to be in boxes.  Or is that timber converted to pulp for box making to serve their produce packing needs??

Shipping boxes especially for the California citrus industry was one of the principal uses of California and eastern Oregon pine.  Almost every sawmill had a box factory next to it, and many more independent box factories existed as stand alone operations.  In the late 1910s and early 1920s a full third of the prodigious output of the McCloud sawmill went straight into their box factory, and lumber sales to other box factories in the area accounted for the bulk of their sales.  It's important to note these box factories would cut the box pieces (known in the industry as shook) and then assemble the pieces of a box together in a wire wrapped bundle that would be shipped, the customer would assemble the box where it was needed.  A need to control pine box supply drove several fruit companies into various aspects of the timber industry, and the market is why so many companies in California and especially the Klamath Basin had "Box" somewhere in their name. 

Sunkist established FGS in order to secure their wooden box supply, they had mills in Hilt and Susanville for many decades that existed mostly to supply the Sunkist growers with wooden boxes.  By the early 1940s they had the end of their timber supply available to the Susanville mill in sight and desperately needed more pine logs, but by that point Red River's 80,000-acre Burney tract was the only substantial block of virgin pine left in northeastern California.  The only way FGS was able to buy it was to buy the Red River Lumber Company itself from the Walker family, though as Martin noted the Walker family retained a lot of the other timberlands they owned in the area.  Red River had been looking at building a logging railroad, potentially electrified, running from the WP at Poison Lake west into the Burney tract since the later 1930s.  FGS started dusting those plans off and actually surveyed most of the line in the early 1950s.  Then FGS successfully made Craveneer, a patented plywood-like material, in the former Red River plywood plant in Westwood using white fir, a "trash" species that is plentiful in northeastern California but has basically no commercial uses.  FGS immediately started planning to convert their entire shipping box production over to Craveneer, and to help finance that they sold the pine lumber in the Burney tract to the McCloud River Lumber Company.  FGS planned to build a Craveneer plant in Burney that would process the white fir in the Burney tract, and because of that one of the contract stipulations in the pine sale to McCloud was that they had to build a common carrier railroad into Burney.  That's why the McCloud River Railroad built to Burney when they did, and the Burney tract sale is the only reason McCloud lasted past the very early 1960s.  Up until they got that sale McCloud was planning to be out of business by around 1963 simply because they would have exhausted all of their timber supplies.

Cardboard upset all these plans, and essentially by 1955 it had replaced the wooden box in almost all shipping.  FGS dropped Craveneer and never did built its plant in Burney, but they continued operating their mills for another decade or more selling lumber on the open market, and today they just manage the timberlands left over from the pine box days as investment property, selling the timber harvested off of those lands to others.  FGS does have at least one good sized pallet plant in central California, and a couple years ago they actually built a brand new sawmill near Yreka to process trees cut off their lands into boards for that plant, but the economics didn't work out and they shut the sawmill down a year or two ago.

Hope this helps answer your question!

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV