Steam & Excursion > McCloud River #25, a century of service

Greetings- I've had this month circled on my mental calendar for a while now, but it still sort of snuck up on me.  A steam locomotive very close to my heart, and to many others on this board, is turning a century old this month.

In 1924 the McCloud River Lumber Company secured its future for many decades to come when it acquired from The Red River Lumber Company harvesting rights to 87,000 acres of timber centered southeast of Bartle, California.  The long term operational security this sale provided the company allowed both it and the closely affiliated McCloud River Railroad to make substantial investments in improving their operations.  On the railroad side this consisted largely of six new modern Prairie-type locomotives useful for almost any role on the railroad, from log trains on the temporary spurs in the woods to handling lumber trains destined for the interchanges with the outside world.  Baldwin built the first two in January 1924 that carried road numbers 20 and 21.  American Locomotive Company (Alco) got the order for the other four, a pair of 65-ton machines built in July 1925 the got assigned road numbers 22 and 23, followed up by a second pair of 72-ton machines built in September 1925 that got assigned road numbers 24 and 25.  The second pair would end up being the last new steam locomotives the McCloud River Railroad would buy.  The arrival of the six new locomotives allowed the railroad to retire and sell a number of its older and smaller power.  The railroad also invested heavily in its log car fleet, building or buying a number of new cars and rebuilding a number of its older 26- and 28- foot flatcars to 40-foot cars. 

The McCloud headquarters office issued the Authority for Expenditure (AFE) document to purchase the #24 and #25 on 1 July 1925.  The pair cost the railroad $21,475 each to purchase, plus $2,103.89 each for freight and $93.25 break-in.  Alco completed the pair in the first days of September 1925 as they arrived in time to be placed in service by the end of the month.  The pair put in solid 30-year careers working in all aspects of the operations, but spent most of their time assigned to the McCloud River Lumber Company crews working out of the logging camps at White Horse, Widow Valley, Kinyon, and then Pondosa.  The railroad tapped the #25 to power two of its earliest railfan excursions, first the Northern California Railroad Club's Pondosa Logger on 9 May 1953, then in a starring role in the Golden Spike excursions operated in the first days of July 1955 to celebrate completing the new Burney branch extension.  It was perhaps this last excursion that prompted railroad president Flake Willis to talk the railroad's board of directors to keep the #25 instead of selling it for scrap in the railroad's final steam locomotive purge at the end of 1955.  The #25 went into storage in McCloud awaiting future developments. 

The era that would endear the #25 to generations of railfans started on 9 June 1962 when the railroad operated a special excursion along with Yreka Western's former McCloud River 2-8-2 #19.  California-Nevada Railroad Historical Society and the Pacific Coast Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society jointly sponsored the excursion.  The #25 became a fixture in the California rail scene over the next thirteen years, mostly on special chartered trips sponsored by the Pacific Locomotive Association and/or the Northern California Railroad Club, plus two attempts at regularly scheduled passenger operations made by the Mt. Shasta Alpine Scenic Railway and then the Shasta Huffen Puff.  Skyrocketing gas and insurance prices ended that era in 1975.  The #25 remained in storage again until 1982 when Fred Kepner's Great Western Railroad Museum returned the locomotive to operation in a partnership agreement they had with the railroad.  That excursion period lasted four years before ending when the railroad deeded the #25 to Kepner as part of a lawsuit settlement.  The #25 again went into storage, where it remained until 1995 when the new McCloud Railway regained title to the #25 in exchange for forgiving unpaid equipment storage fees and some other considerations.  The McCloud Railway got the #25 back in service in late summer 1997, and it again steamed for tourists and happy railfans until February 2001, when the former McCloud River and Yreka Western 2-8-2 #18 replaced it after a single double head trip.  This latest period of storage would last until 2007 when a movie production company leased the #25, again returned it to operable status, and then substantially modified its appearance to make it look more "western" for potential movie work that did not materialize.  The McCloud Railway decided in 2008 to sell the #25, which resulted in a pair of final McCloud excursions, one a weekend of photo freights organized by Martin Hansen in October 2008 that paid for the movie modifications to be undone, then a final weekend's worth of excursions in November 2008 sponsored by the Shasta-Cascade Rail Preservation Society and Pacific Locomotive Association.  The #25 remained in storage in McCloud until February 2011 when the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad of Garibaldi, Oregon, purchased the locomotive and shortly thereafter trucked it to their railroad, where it has largely remained in service in the fourteen years since. 

The three photos attached are of the builder's plate and then two of my favorite shots of the #25 at near the bookends of its fascinating life, first a 1934 shot by Rolland Edwards and courtesy of Marilyn Rountree of the locomotive at work in the woods near White Horse, California, and then a pan shot I got of the #25 on the Oregon Coast Scenic back in July 2014. 

Happy 100th birthday, #25!

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV           



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/25 08:44 by JDLX.

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Yes, H-B and many more.

This locomotive always seemed to around or the topic of discussion, certainly in Dunsmuir with the coffee shop contingent of the day. PhotoBob exposed a lot of film for both #25 and #19 iirc and those would be generoudly posted in the TO archives.

Thanks to Jeff for the abundant explanations of the McCloud operations and the complex Kepner love-hate relationship. Lots of those stories are fading from history.

Here's my tribute to #25  and the whole long gone show for that matter:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4968783,4969136#msg-4969136

Date: 03/02/20 14:09
McCloud #25 Monday
Author: TCnR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/25 23:18 by TCnR.

Great thread and pictures guys!

Thanks for the story and history   She has proven to be a winner
D.

Back in the 1960s and 70s, The Pacific Locomotive Association used to run annual January snow trips on the McCloud River Railroad
using #25. Here is a Joe Ward photo from the 1970 excursion.
Regards, Jim Evans

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I'll drop one in here - took some manipulating in Photoshop to get this badly underexposed image even viewable.  This was from a MAY 85 excursion I had the pleasure of riding.  The photo is of the train returning to McCloud after the passengers had been detrained in Mt. Shasta.  Somewhere up near Signal Butte I think - I always got turned around up in there, or maybe it was the train that did that (on the switchback).

mike woodruff
north platte ne  

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And here she is departing Garibaldi on a cloudy, misty, March 16, 2025, the day after Winterail.

Jeff Gast
Greenwood, Indiana

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What is the status of the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad in Garibaldi? I've heard a government entity wants to close most of the ROW and convert it to a trail. What's the current situation; is it expected to survive?

Thanks to all who have contributed.  

Mike, your photo is one of the more popular photo spots through the years, right off 89 a little more than halfway between Hooper and Signal Butte.  

To the question on Oregon Coast Scenic, they have outlined the current situation and their position on the matter really well in the response posted to the following page:

https://oregoncoastscenic.org/pressrelease080725/

Lastly, here are three more photos, one of the #25 and its engineer in the White Horse country; an uncredited shot of the locomotive at the 1955 Burney Gold Spike celebration; and a C.G. Heimerdinger Jr. shot of a PLA snow trip. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV
 

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I have quite a history with McCloud Riverr Railraod #25.  I fired her in the movie Stand By Me and later spent 20 years firing her or running her on my photo charters.  Jef Forbis asked me to fire her on her very last run in 2008.  Malen and I pose with her at Signal Butte on that last run.  When I dropped the fire back at the shops that day, that was the very end of steam on the McCloud.
I sold #25 3 times and helped move her once.  Yes, she and I go way back.

Martin

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When I sold #25 to OCSR, Jeff Forbis gave me one of her original builders plates and super heater plates.  Earlier this year I locatec the other builders plate to keep the set intact.

Martin

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