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Equipment & Rolling Stock Details - Shasta Sunset Dinner Train
McCloud Rails : Equipment & Rolling Stock Details

Shasta Sunset Dinner Train
When the McCloud Railway Company management decided to launch a dinner train operation in the fall of 1995, the road possessed only three pieces of passenger equipment. All three were open-air flatcars built for excursion work. The road immediately set out to find suitable cars for the proposed service. A total of seven heavyweight cars were purchased, with most coming from a defunct tourist stop in the Midwest known as the Purple Martin Dinner Train. Six of the seven cars have been re-built for one kind of service or another. The current dinner train set consists of the following cars:
Marking & Name
Function
MCR ? (Strawberry Valley) Lounge/Concession/Power Car
MCR 2801 (Trinity) Special Events/Dining Car
MCR 2819 (Siskiyou) Dining Car
MCR 2838 (Shasta) Dining Car
MCR 2840 (No Name) Unrestored
MCR2900 (Lassen) Dining Car
MCR 2903 ( McCloud) Depot
MCR ???? (Not Known) Dancing Car


The Siskiyou, Shasta, and Lassen cars are all built as fine dining cars with kitchen facilities. The Trinity car has removable seats and can be set up to accommodate just about any type of event when not set up for dining service. The most recent addition to the fleet is the Dancing Car, which was released from the McCloud shops in the fall of 2002. The Dancing Car is used most often in the winter months, and an open-air flatcar is substituted for it during the summer months.

The dancing car, which is the most recent addition to the dinner train set.

(Picture: 88) McCloud, CA, 5/2003. This is the power and lounge car. It contains a generator that provides house power to the entire dinner train, a concession area for selling McCloud Railway and other railroad-related paraphernalia, and a large lounge area.

(Picture: 89) McCloud, CA, 5/2003. The Shasta Sunset Dinner Train is seen here parked at the McCloud depot. The large brick structure in the center of the photo is the old company vault that used to be inside the railroad’s office building and depot before it burned to the ground a few days before Christmas in 1990.


Picture: 91) McCloud, CA, 5/2003. MCR #2903, named the McCloud, was converted into a depot building and a company store for the Shasta Sunset Dinner Train Operations.

(Picture: 90) McCloud, CA, 5/2003. MCR #2840 is the only one of the seven cars that remains un-restored.


McCloud, CA, 6/2004. One other passenger coach, SCRX #6203, is stored in the McCloud yards. This coach is a former Southern Pacific car. It is owned by an outside party and is either leased to or stored on the McCloud. It is rumored to have been used in movie work before moving to the McCloud.


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