McCloud Rails : Equipment & Rolling Stock Details

Centerbeams

Lumber has traditionally moved over the McCloud River Railroad in boxcars or on flatcars. By the early 1980’s almost all lumber was moving on bulkhead flatcars. However, lumber producers like the centerbeam cars over all other lumber-hauling cars, mostly because of their ease of loading and the amount of lumber that can be loaded on one car. However, per diem rates (the money that one road pays for the use of a car belonging to another road) for centerbeams averages $1/hour. To reduce the budgetary impact, the McCloud Railway management leased about 100 of these cars in the mid-1990’s. The cars wear MR reporting marks and are numbered in the 9100-series. The road does not own the cars; it does pay a rental fee for their use, and the road pays no per diem for the time they spend on McCloud rails.

A McCloud centerbeam in the McCloud yard. Peter Ely photograph.

McCloud, CA, 11/2002.

McCloud, CA, 5/2003.

After the railroad ended freight service, the centerbeams trickled home. The railroad has stored them in the Mt. Shasta and McCloud yards, with additional lines of stored MR centerbeams reported to be in Montana. The soft lumber market that has prevailed since has kept GE Capital, owner of the cars, from finding a new lessee. Photo by and courtesy of Norman K. Linn.

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