The Almanor Railroad was a Class III

short-line railroad :''Short Line is also one of the four railroads in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly, named after the Shore Fast Line, an interurban streetcar line.'' A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that opera ...

operating in

Northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

, USA. It was owned by Collins Pine Company, a division of The Collins Companies and annually hauled approximately 300 carloads of

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

and

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

products generated at the mill. The railroad was named after

Lake Almanor Lake Almanor is a large reservoir in northwestern Plumas County, northeastern California, United States. The reservoir has a capacity of and a maximum depth of about 90 feet (27 meters). It is formed by Canyon Dam on the North Fork of the Feather ...

, which the railroad ran over (by causeway) and adjacent to. The railroad ran west from a connection with the

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

(former Western Pacific) at Clear Creek Junction to

Chester, California Chester (formerly Big Meadows) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Plumas County, California, United States. Chester is located on Lake Almanor, north-northwest of Quincy. The town is located along State Route 36. The US Postal Service ZIP c ...

. The Almanor Railroad was incorporated on September 15, 1941, and purchased the line from the Grande Ronde Lumber Company; and was discontinued in late 2009. The railroad line was built before 1931 by the Red River Lumber Company which had a private electric logging railroad with a

trestle ATLAS-I (Air Force Weapons Lab Transmission-Line Aircraft Simulator), better known as Trestle, was a unique electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generation and testing apparatus built between 1972 and 1980 during the Cold War at Sandia National Laborato ...

over the

Feather River The Feather River is the principal tributary of the Sacramento River, in the Sacramento Valley of Northern California. The river's main stem is about long. Its length to its most distant headwater tributary is just over . The main stem Feather R ...

and ran from Westwood (about east of Clear Creek Junction) to Chester. The portion of the Red River Lumber line between Westwood and Chester was the BNSF mainline from Keddie to Bieber. The BNSF also has trackage rights over the Almanor Railroad. The Almanor Railroad had one 70-ton GE

locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...

built in 1955.

References

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External links

The Collins Companies: Almanor: History
Defunct California railroads Logging railroads in the United States 1941 establishments in California 2009 disestablishments in California {{California-transport-stub

References

Further reading

External links