gregcoit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Still, a freight every 30 or 40 minutes is amazing
> for a guy stuck in Eureka, CA the last 30 years .
> The last train we we had here was almost 20
> years ago now?

> Last winter, I drove to Redding, CA to railfan the
> route from there to Mount Shasta.  A couple of
> friends and I spent the whole day looking and
> we got skunked. Sure, it was a Sunday but still,
> I would have thought Uncle Pete would have
> been running something.


You'll have plenty to keep you busy, Greg -

The economy has continued to perk up the last few years, so there's probably a BNSF freight in one direction or the other every fifteen to twenty minutes, especially eastbound loads out of Los Angeles on Friday shooting for Chicago by Monday morning. Westbounds are more likely mostly empty containers heading home to China, Japan, etc., so not quite so intense.  I'm not sure if the eastbound S.W. Chief gets to Williams before dawn; you might see the westbound late in the evening if she's on time.

And speaking of Mt. Shasta, I was very lucky that my dad liked to fish; when I was ten years old we arrived in Dunsmuir for the first time on the morning of July 4th, 1952.  I was too young to ride the Independence Day Special from Dunsmuir to Mt. Shasta (or was it McCloud?) by myself that afternoon, but did get to watch it pass by our motel at Lookout Point in between a constant parade of cab-forwards and 2-10-2's. Twenty-three years later I chased #4449 and the Freedom Train south from Portland to Reno, and caught a photo from where the lookout platform used to be located on the grounds of the abandoned motel property.  (See [ngdiscussion.net] for pics.)

- Roosso



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2016 11:20PM by Russo Loco.