Basic HTML Version
rails
to
trails
u
fall.12
24
community connections
CALIFORNIA
Great News for
Great Shasta
From timber to Tinseltown, the McCloud
Railway Company in Northern California
has had a long and storied history. A
new chapter will be added soon, as the
company has agreed to sell an 80-mile
section of the line to a local land trust
for conversion into a rail-trail.
In late March, the railway company’s
owner, 4 Rails Inc., announced it was sell-
ing the right-of-way between two former
logging towns to the Shasta Land Trust.
The nonprofit group plans to transform
the corridor into a multi-use path called
the Great Shasta Rail-Trail.
The rail corridor curves northwest-
ward from the town of Burney past
McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State
Park, and through the rugged woodlands
of Shasta-Trinity National Forest. It ends
in McCloud, a former company town on
the flanks of Mount Shasta, a 14,179-foot
dormant volcano towering over the sur-
rounding countryside.
“This goes through some of the most
beautiful country in California,” says
Ben Miles, executive director of the land
trust. “We hope the trail will be popu-
lar not only locally and regionally, but
nationally.”
Staffers from Rails-to-Trails
Conservancy (RTC) have been providing
advice and assistance on the project and
agree the new path will have wide inter-
est. “It will be one of the longest rail-trails
in the state—we don’t have many long,
scenic rail-trails in California,” says Steve
Schweigerdt, manager of trail develop-
ment in RTC’s Western Regional Office.
The McCloud railway started more
than a century ago, when business-
men eager to harvest the region’s large
evergreens purchased land and timber
concessions in this southern section of
the Cascade Mountains. The McCloud
River Lumber Company built much of
the original rail line, using it to transport
logs and timber to market for decades.
Hollywood came calling in the latter
half of the 20th century, most notably in
1985 when director Rob Reiner filmed a
dramatic scene of the critically acclaimed
movie “Stand by Me” on the tracks.
(The scene had the young protagonists
dashing across the lofty Lake Britton
trestle to escape an oncoming locomo-
tive.) Cinematic fame did nothing to
alter the railroad’s slow decline, however.
The railroad’s owners filed for abandon-
ment of the McCloud-to-Burney section
in 2005, and local groups stepped in to
railbank the right-of-way.
After several years of negotiations,
the Shasta Land Trust and its local
partners—Save Burney Falls, McCloud
Local First Network, the Volcanic
Legacy Community Partnership and
the McCloud Trail Association—finally
reached an agreement in March to pur-
chase the 80-mile section. The final price
was not disclosed, but trust officials say it
was well below market value. Under the
agreement, the buyers will have two years
to raise the purchase money—but they
are well on their way with a commitment
for a $350,000 grant from the state.
Miles is hoping to have portions of
the trail open for use soon after the pur-
chase is finalized. “The rails and ties have
been removed, and the base is crushed,
compacted cinder—so it’s already fairly
rideable by mountain bike,” he says.
Residents of Burney and McCloud
are eagerly awaiting opening day, Miles
adds. “Bringing in this long-distance
recreational trail will add to the draw of
both towns and help bring more atten-
tion and business to them. They see it as
a potential economic engine.”
For more information, or to find out
how to contribute to the project, visit
www.mccloudlocalfirst.org
.
WISCONSIN
Sheltering History
What was old—and nearly lost—is new
again on the Hank Aaron State Trail, a
12-mile pathway through the heart of
Milwaukee.
Two ornate, copper-clad trolley shelters
from the 1920s have been rescued from
oblivion and recently turned into stun-
ning new rest stops by the Friends of the
Hank Aaron State Trail, a volunteer support
group. Now, with the help of a $10,000
donation from Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s
(RTC’s) Metropolitan Grants Program
(funded by The Coca-Cola Foundation),
another one of the unique shelters is slated
for refurbishing and placement on the trail.
“This is a case of ‘one person’s trash is
another person’s treasure,’” says Eric
Oberg, manager of trail development
for RTC’s Midwest Regional Office.
“These unique structures had been lost,
but fortunately they weren’t scrapped.”
The 16-by-6-foot waiting stations were
handcrafted from wood and copper in
Milwaukee in 1927 and placed along a
trolley line on the 16th Street viaduct,
one of several bridges over the Menomonee
River Valley. The trolleys stopped running
in the late 1950s, replaced by buses, but
the distinctive shelters weren’t removed
until the late 1980s.
FROM TOP LEFT: COLUMBIA PICTURES/ENTERTAINMENT PICTURES/ZUMAPRESS.COM; TOP RIGHT: COURTESY OF BEN MILES/SHASTA LAND TRUST; BOTTOM: COURTESY OF MELISSA COOK
The next time you run on this trestle—made
famous in the movie “Stand by Me”—it can
be for fun or exercise, not to outrun a train.
Copper shelter at 25th Street.