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McCloud Rails : Equipment & Rolling Stock Details
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MR Flanger #1773
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McCloud River flanger #1773 was built in the McCloud shops in 1923. The McCloud railroads operated in snow country, and as such had to contend with snow removal to maintain operations during the winter months. Snow has a tendancy to pack down between the rails during snow removal operations, which can turn to ice and derail a train if present in enough volume. The flanger combated this menace by dropping a flanger blade down between the rails, which cleared snow from between the rails while the plow was pulled or pushed along by locomotives. The flanger blade had to be raised and lowered to avoid such things as grade crossings or switches; in the early years this job was done by hand, and the flangers were equipped with doghouses to provide some level of protection to the crew. The McCloud preferred small versative combination box plow/flangers, which had the flanger blade mounted inside a box plow, but it did roster at least one "straight" flanger. The #1773 was in use on the railroad up until the closure of the logging railroad lines in 1963 made it surplus. In 1964 it was donated to a proposed railroad museum to be located in Dunsmuir along with some other ex-McCloud equipment. The museum idea fell apart, and the plow is on display to this day in the Railroad Park Resort just south of Dunsmuir, CA.
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This clipping is from issue #309 of the Western Railroader. It shows four of the pieces of equipment donated by the McCloud to the proposed museum. The #1773 is the second car from the left, right behind the giant bucker plow. The third car in line is one of the box plow/flangers that the railroad preferred, and caboose #031 brings up the end of the line. The bucker plow, the #1773, caboose 031 and coach 01 are still in the Railroad Park Resort: a flash flood severely damaged the box plow/flanger many years ago, and its frame is now reportely part of the foundation underneath the kitchen area of the resort. Clipping is from the Glen Comstock collection.
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The #1773 as it appears today. Dunsmuir, CA, 6/2004
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The other end of the #1773. Dunsmuir, CA, 6/2004
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Looking head on at one end of the car. The #1773 has seen it's share of winters and will not survive many more without some help in the near future. Dunsmuir, CA, 6/2004
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Detail shot of the flanger blades and mechanism under the car. Dunsmuir, CA, 6/2004.
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