Nostalgia & History > Lookout

Heres McCloud 39 switching the BNSF interchange at Lookout Ca. back in the early 90's. Theres no more interchanging with the BNSF as McClouds Lookout Lines rail was removed many years ago.

Robert Morris Photography
http://www.snowcrest.net/photobob/index1.html

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Thanks for sharing Bob. If anyone here knows, I'm curious what the track layout was there and how many cars they interchanged in a year.

There were several interchange tracks and a nice big balloon track for the McCloud trains to turn on. Don't know much about cars per year, but it fluctuated quite a bit depending on car supply.

Stan

I suspect that the first track and the sign are BN.
There were times that the BN was not interested in this route. I didn't understand why the McCloud didn't get trackage rights into NuBieber, which is a mile or two to the south. This would have connected with the WP and later the UPRR, eventually BNSF gained the whole route to Keddie, then lured the traffic away from the McCloud with a truck re-load in NuBieber. Nasty business.
Any thoughts?

The former McCloud 39 now works for the UP at West Colton, usually in trim service assembling outbound trains. The old McCloud paint job is showing in places underneath the gray and yellow. Here's a photo of it from 2 1/2 years ago:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=583162

Mark

TCnR Wrote:
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I didn't understand why the McCloud
> didn't get trackage rights into NuBieber, which is
> a mile or two to the south.

I thought they DID have trackage rights into BIEBER (NuBieber only when off the railroad), it was just easier to hand cars off at Lookout rather than fight getting a running order over the dark territory.

TCnR Wrote:
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> I suspect that the first track and the sign are BN.

I suspect you're right, that sign is definetly BN.


TCS - snow lip on top

Yep, my Bieber and NuBieber is Nixed nup.

After the UP pulled out of the Bieber line run through that the WP had in 1983, the BN lost interest in the Lookout interchange. When the BNSF started its trains over the Intergateway, the McCloud came out to Lookout once a week, I think.

I'm late to this thread.

As to why the McCloud never had trackage rights down to Nubieber...that is a long and complicated story. Great Northern/BN/BNSF owned the 34 miles of tracks running west from Lookout, or as far as Hambone. WP had trackage rights over this stretch but never used them. GN/BN/BNSF hired the McCloud railroads as their operating agent for the Hambone-Lookout trackage. This what made the line a strong candidate for abandonment back in 2003- BNSF simply struck a haulage agreement with UP that allowed them to close this line and abandon it.

Somebody asked about interchange rates. It varied, from a couple thousand cars a year into the late 1970's down to a couple hundred cars a year in the early 1980's. Interchange rates held steady at 1500-2000 loads a year from 1988 through 1998, when the paper traffic the McCloud handled went to an all-BNSF routing to Reno after the UP-SP merger. Carloadings then dropped to less than 250 cars a year for the last five years that trains ran to Lookout.

I may have more later...

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

TCnR Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I suspect that the first track and the sign are
> BN.
> There were times that the BN was not interested in
> this route. I didn't understand why the McCloud
> didn't get trackage rights into NuBieber, which is
> a mile or two to the south. This would have
> connected with the WP and later the UPRR,
> eventually BNSF gained the whole route to Keddie,
> then lured the traffic away from the McCloud with
> a truck re-load in NuBieber. Nasty business.
> Any thoughts?