Once we arived back at Signal Butte,
there was time to get off Bill's
motorcar and stretch for a few minutes.
I
had enough time to investigate the area and it appears that there is an
old foundation from a water tower. Scattered about were old bales
of hay from events which the Shasta Dinner Train passengers could use
during barbeques held at Signal Butte.
After watching some motor
cars turned around, Bill soon pulled up and I hopped on for the run
back to Bartle.
On the downhill return to McCloud,
one motorcar operator broadcast a
request to stop and explore a monument very close to the tracks.
It turned out to be a monument erected by the people of McCloud in
memory of B.W. Lakin who died October 1, 1936. The only
information I could find on Mr. Lakin was that he was associated with
the McCloud River Lumber Company. He must have been an important
person in the community. The railroad between Lookout and
Porcupine had a location name of Lakin. Below right is more of
the
right of way between McCloud and Bartle.
Back at Bartle , we set off the car
and restored
it back on its trailer. Above right, Bill's car had been lifted
up by the turntable and turned perpendicular to the rails before being
winched onto the trailer. Below, Bill Rust, the guy with the
1942 popper
car took me to the Bartle water tower and I took some photographs of
this old beauty.
Below left is Bill Rust's car parked
near the Bartle water
tower. This car is beautifully restored and well taken care
of. I
like the fact that Bill has equipped his car with GPS.
After we returned to the Bartle grade
crossing,
Bill and I drove through McCloud and on to Shasta City for a gasoline
fillup
and while he was doing that, I heard the UP railroad crossing activate
but no train arrived. Many cars turned around during the 5
minutes the crossing closed the street. We then crossed the track
and found a fast food restaurant which got my order wrong, but quickly
fixed it. We then hit the road and Bill told me his motor car
ownership history. Above right, while on Interstate 5 south, we
were driving through the Lake Shasta area and the highway crosses the
lake on the pictured bridge. Bill pointed out that there was an
intermodal train on the lower level. I was not quick enough on
the camera to get a shot of the train. Once over the bridge, we
did not see the tracks for quite a few miles.
Bill did a recap of the 2 days on the McCloud Railway which included a
major derailment of a McCloud Railway train, cars blocking the Hambone
Branch, a motorcar derailment, bad track, and numerous motorcar
breakdowns due to mechanical issures. Bill revealed how he got
into the hobby. Prior to this trip, Bill had told me of growing
up in the Echo Park area slightly northeast of downtown Los
Angeles. He has had a lifelong appreciation and respect of
trains. A retired teacher with 42 years of experience in the
classroom, he is currently an Operation Lifesaver presenter and
presenter trainer in the Southern California area. He told me
that he found out about the motorcar hobby by viewing a Motorcar
Operators West
video around 1994 at a rail related event in
Sacramento California. One of his sons, while attending
California State
University San Luis Obispo, met an instructor who owned a motorcar and
was willing to sell it. Bill then went on a run with the car
owner Ron Zammit near Fresno on the San Joaquin Valley Railroad.
Bill purchased this 2 stroke belt car for a paltry sum of
$375.00. Once he
got the car home, he cleaned out the gas tank, got a model T QV22 coil
and it started up! He also got a battery. Now that he knew
he had a spark and clean fuel, it has been running ever since with some
additional fine tuning. The belt car came with a roof and
windshield. This old popper car had come from Canadian Pacific
and spent much of its life in Revelstoke British Columbia utilized by
signal maintainer crews. Since most guys are not satisfied with
one car due to "needs", he found and bought another one. A man
needs more room and or more power. The lower power car is like a
toy in comparison. The car we ran on the McCloud was a Denver and
Rio Grande Western motorcar. Once high rail trucks came into
widespread use, the railroads got rid of the motorcars. Some
enterprising people with an amount of foresight purchased quantities of
these now unneeded motorcars and began reselling them to private
owners. Bill has put at least 2,000 miles on the belt car and
over 8,000 miles on the D&RG car. In the time since the
McCloud
trip, Bill and his wife traveled up to Canada and put 1,200 miles on
the DRG car.
Our destination was originally to be
some town a few hours north of
Sacramento, but I convinced Bill to go to Sacramento so I could visit
with a friend who owns a coffee place called Java Express. We
first checked Bill into a motel. Amazingly, there was a truck
with a motor car on a trailer at the motel. I had thought this
motor car had been on the McCloud , but it was not. Bill found
out in the morning that the motor car and owner had been returning to
Santa Barbara from a run on the Camas Prairie Railroad in Idaho and
Washington. I was able to stay over at Jim's 100 year old 2 story
house constructed out of redwood. We visited for a while and I
set an alarm so Jim could return me to the motel near the Sacramento
Amtrak Station where Bill was staying. We left the motorcar in
Redding with fiiends and ran Bill's truck light
the rest of the way back to Orange County where my car was. The
motorcar was then picked up approximately 10 days later on the way to a
major motorcar trip in British Columbia Canada. After the return
to Southern California, I
then headed home with a two day rest to work and then onto Alaska for
an eight day fishing vacation.
Lastly, thank you to Bill Schertle for taking me on the journey
to Burney, Bartle and McCloud.
