Steam & Excursion > California Western 46 revisited

A few weeks back there was a discussion on this board about the California Western #46 and its less than fully successful removal of the saddle tanks after its arrival on the California coast.  As a follow up to that, Tom Moungovan located these two slides in his collection of the #46 with a six car train, both shot by John Hungerford on 19 August 1972, and asked me to post them.  Earl reported in a response to the previous thread that the #46 was rated for seven cars while the smaller #45 was rated for five, though the #45 did make it up the hill from Willits with six cars once, though barely.   I shared a story in the prior discussion Tom wrote up of an experience he had running the #46 easily up and over Ridge Hill with a full six car train, also in 1972. 

I also asked California Western historian Kevin Bunker how long the railroad used the #46, his notes say through the last day of the 1977 season, meaning despite the less than expected performance CWR got a good seven years worth of work out of the locomotive.  In the end, period news reports and other resources indicate CWR retired the locomotive due to the expense to maintain it rather than and issues with performance or not living up to expectations.  Declining ridership caused by spiking fuel and energy costs and the other economic uphevals caused many tourist railroads to shut down in the late 1970s and forced those that survived to make a lot of tough choices.  

Thanks to Tom for sending these photos and his thoughts along.  

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV 
 

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Well done - Both your comments and photos are great. I like how you posted both ends of the train.
Bob

Where is 46 now?

What ever happened to 46?

46 is in Campo, Ca. at the Pacific Southwest RR Museum.

Great information.  Thank you, Jeff and Tom.

Sometime around 1977,  the CWR stopped running steam all the way to Willits and steam only went from Ft. Bragg to Northspur and back.  According to some management people I knew at Kyle Rys, who were running the CWR, they said the main reason for doing that was the trains were getting too long for either the 45 or 46 to get across the mountain.  45 was capable of taking any size train they wanted from Ft. Bragg to Northspur.

I visited the CRW in Sept. 1977 after the steam season ended.  Both 45 and 46 were inside the engine house.  The next time I came by in 1979, 46 was stored outside, and it looked like it hadn't run for a while.

Was too little to have seen it in person, but I do remember having a calendar full of great pictures, one of the NWP loco now at the California State Railroad Museum, and one of #46.  We did ride the Skunk when I was in high school, but it was a diesel powered train.

Nathan