In our June 2009 feature “A McCloud River Remembrance,” we brought you a photo essay of this fallen flag, as documented through the lens of rail photography legend Ted Benson. Of course, when it comes to Benson’s photography, there’s never enough room, so here’s a few more stunning shots of recent history.
By summer 2005, freight service to the Sierra Pacific sawmill in Burney, California was down to one or two trips a week. The final day of June finds McCloud SD38 No. 36 assembling a train of outbound dimensional lumber loads in the millyard on the west side of town. Photo by Ted Benson
Westbound for Big Canyon, the Shasta Sunset Dinner Train rolls into a long summer afternoon below Signal Butte, California on Aug. 6, 2005. Freight service on the McCloud Railway had less than a year to go at the time of this photograph. In 2009, McCloud’s dinner trains provide the line’s last operation. Photo by Ted Benson
Shopmen Keith Jones and Dan Beckett hostle No. 18 at McCloud on Aug. 7, 2005. Photo by Ted Benson
One mile from the junction with the Burney main line at Berry siding, McCloud 37 tackles a short stretch of 4 percent with the Sierra Pacific loads in tow, cresting the grade at a spot known to crews as “Rattlesnake Cut.” Yard limits date to McCloud River Railroad operations; the DTC block sign is a McCloud Railway installation. Aug. 5, 2005. Photo by Ted Benson
Crimson clouds of volcanic dust rise under the wheels of McCloud 37 as the westbound Burney trains crosses Edison Creek Road at the station site of Swobe on Aug. 5, 2005. The long hot summer is taking its toll on the snowfields on Mount Shasta. Photo by Ted Benson
“Looking for all the world like a John Krause photograph from 1951,” McCloud 18 rolls a chartered photo freight into the woods on July 3, 2005. Photo by Ted Benson
Brakeman Kenji Maumasi minds the scalehouse at McCloud, California as the Mount Shasta-bound “Yard and Hill Job” weighs in for a battle with the 4.4 percent grade up to Signal Butte on July 1, 2005. Photo by Ted Benson
