Another Nevada-California-Oregon passenger car heads home!

N-C-O combine 12 left its long time resting spot in Auburn, California yesterday heading back to Alturas, where N-C-O mail-express car 22 and baggage-mail 72 currently reside. Also joining them in N-C-O boxcar 518.

The task of moving the 12 was a complicated one. Weather had taken its toll and part of the roof has caved in on the car. However, upon lifting the body to prep for movement, it was found that the frame was straight and true even when only supported at the bolsters. N-C-O Ry President Shane Starr and Charter Member Sam McGrath, with help from some other folks, spent days bracing the body and gathering loose material to allow for safe transport. A second problem was access to the site. Originally, Ken Yeo, former owner of the car, had cut a road to the north to allow the car to be trucked in. Decades of non-use and weather resulted in nature reclaiming this route and covering it with trees and shrubs while run off cut into the terrain. Shane, N-C-O Treasurer Laura Snell Starr, N-C-O VP Eugene Vicknair and charter member Christopher Kapreilian spent a day shopping down trees and pulling bushes out to allow a backhoe operator to come in and regrade the road that would allow 12 to be trucked.

Now, the months of work and negotiations are done and the car is nearly home. It should have arrived in Alturas about 2 PM today completing a journey that began about 2:30 PM Tuesday.

To help bring the N-C-O back to life, please consider joining us and / or making a donation. Info can be found here: [www.ncory.org]

Here are some photos of the car itself and the work needed to get it moved.


- N-C-O combine 12 as it appeared in 2014. Photo by Andrew Brandon



- Sam McGrath works the jack while Shane Starr checks the underside clearance. (Look for the blue jeans under the car.) Photographer Eugene Vicknair acts as safety spotter and watches the level of the lift. This was about 7:30 at night on Sunday, 11-14-2021 and the sunlight was long gone.



- Sam (left) and Shane discuss details of the cribbing to lift #12 the 44 inches needed to clear the trailer. Photo by Eugene Vicknair



- N-C-O 12 heads down the recently cleared and regraded road. Tuesday 11/16/2021. Photo by Shane Starr.



- The trailer reaches California Highway 49 and the 12 takes its first steps home.