Nostalgia & History > A Yreka Western flashback

Yreka Weterns Alco MRS-1 #244 leads a single box car on a run from Yreka to the CORP connection at Montague. The Date was October 20, 2005 and all seemed well with the railroad. Well it all turned to crap a few years later and now the railroad is no more.

Robert Morris
Dunsmuir, CA
Robert Morris Photography

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Wow! Never knew they owned one of those beasts...

In the 1990s I would spend the night in Yreka and eat at Grandma's House just so that I could ride the Grey Goose. Really miss it.
Bill Pyper
Lacey, Washington
(former SLO)
 

Here is a Close up of the Alco/GE MRS1 Ex WP Museum at Portola, Ca seen in Yreka 

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Some kind of composition in that shot!  Nicely done photobob.  Thanks for sharing.

Kent in CArmel Valley

I'd be interested in how this unit got the road number which exactly coincides with its Alco engine number!I assume it is either ex- US Army or US Navy.

James R.(Jim) Baker
Whittier, CA

JimBaker Wrote:

> I'd be interested in how this unit got the road
> number which exactly coincides with its Alco
> engine number!I assume it is either ex- US Army or
> US Navy.

According to Trainweb's YW roster, it started life as USAX 2119, later US Navy 65-00541:

http://www.trainweb.org/rosters/YW.html

The road number and the paint scheme are attributable to Bryan Whipple of Eureka Southern fame.  According to an old post by Jeff Moore, Whipple had acquired the unit for an ultimately stillborn venture to take over the operation of the Nevada Northern.  The unit sat at the WP museum in Portola, CA for a few years before going to the Yreka Western on a flatcar in 2003 (UP wouldn't move it on its own wheels due to friction bearings):

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,224752

YW 244 was cut up in 2011:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,2575673