Re: Lake Railway

John,

Lake Railway is part of the Frontier Rail family. After Modoc Northern failed and simply quit, Frontier got a temporary agreement with Lake County (around May of 2007?) and began operations using an ex Santa Fe GE (B23-7?) that had been leased by NRE to Cornerstone (so that there would be an engine in Lakeview for switching). Frontier sent one of their xAlaska GP49s, eventually repaired the former Lake County 700, added another GP49, and more recently the xMRL 319 SD45R, with a send MRL SD45 and an xNS GP38-2 making brief appearances. If their power was down, or when the gas pipe was moving, they would on occasion use UP power as far as Alturas.

In April, Lake County terminated their contract with LRY. Public reports seem to indicate the county and both shippers had become extremely dissatisfied with LRY's level of service and communication with them. LRY sued the County in Federal Court (case pending) for $26+ million.

When the Court vacated the temporary restraining order and refused to issue an injunction, and the STB refused to grant them relief from any challenge, they seemed to have thrown in the towel. They ran one train in early August, another around Labor Day, and once a week since Goose Lake started running with no locally assigned employees left. Whether their departure from the UP agreement was amicable I don't know, but UP suddenly threw it in Goose Lake's lap to get to Perez for interchange.

I probably saw the 2422 (its BNSF renumber) many times over my lifetime, and as a kid I always waited for No 18 to cross 395 on our way up to the family's cabin in Big Pine Canyon. I didn't make it to the Laws party as I had hoped, but funny how old friends keep crossing paths.

The basic situation for any operator is simple - the ICC granted SP permission to abandon in 1985, so Lake County bought the line to support econmic development. A friend of mine was here in the early days of the first operator Great Western, and there were three lumber mills shipping lumber and chips, and they could run from Lakeview to Alturas and return in one shift as enough of the track was good for 25 mph. After 10 years, GW left and Lake County ran it themselves until Modoc Northern. Until the perlite plant was built, the County had considered closing the line as the one remaining mill wouldn't support it. Even still, there is only maybe 20-30 cars a week average to support the line. The loss of the Modoc as a through route increases the strain on keeping the branch going. But with one of the shippers being involved, maybe the Narrow Crooked and Ornery will survive another day, but no doubt it used another of its nine lives in the process.