: 38–39įrom Bass Lake up to Central Camp, because of the steep 4.5% grade, the Mikado engines could only pull twelve cars at once. It also allowed the engine to run equally well forward and backward. This added more weight over the wheels for better adhesion on climbs. Sugar Pine Railroad Company used custom-built 2-8-2T Mikado engines from American Locomotive Company. Rolling Stock Locomotives Minarets and Western American Locomotive Company Number 5 Builders Photograph Trestle Number 14 was the highest at 110 feet (34 m) feet high. Fifty trestles were required to span the steep terrain. įrom Central Camp, 150 mi (240 km) of logging rails were laid to reach outlying timber tracts. : 145 This requirement added several miles to the serpentine route. Loaded timber trains could coast all the way to the mill, requiring a locomotive only for braking. ![]() Between Bass Lake and Central Camp there are no places where the railroad grade is flat or opposite grade. : 122, 145 This required the Sugar Pine Railroad to run a different set of 2-8-2T locomotives where the water is carried in tanks mounted on the engine to increase tractive power. The Sugar Pine Railroad railway was built at a consistent 4.5 percent grade that wound through a series of sixty-two 20-degree curves. From there, the Minarets and Western flat cars were pulled up a 10.82 mi (17.41 km) standard gauge railroad to Central Camp, the base of logging operations in the woods. The Minarets and Western Railway connected with the Sugar Pine Railroad at the Wishon switching yards at Bass Lake. Minarets and Western Locomotive Number 102. Instead, two standard-gauge railroads were built connecting the sawmill with the lumber camp 63.27 mi (101.82 km) away. This meant the company could not build a log flume to get the wood to market. But it could not acquire the underlying water rights from San Joaquin Light and Power. The Sugar Pine Lumber Company acquired the timber holdings along the upper San Joaquin River. Fresno also offered $375,000 in cash that helped the company secure the railroad right of way to the mountains. įresno won the bid, offering a section of land that became known as Pinedale. : 143įresno and Madera County competed to be the site of a new sawmill and railroad terminus to be built in the San Joaquin Valley alongside the Southern Pacific line. They acquired 50,000 acres (202 km 2) acres of old growth mixed conifer forest spanning eastward from the existing Madera Sugar Pine Lumber Company operation to the gorge of the San Joaquin River. ![]() The Sugar Pine Lumber Company was incorporated in July 1921 by Madera Sugar Pine Company officials Arthur Fleming, John Hemphill, and Elmer Cox and investor Robert Gillis. Burdened by debt and excessive capital and operating expenses, it never turned a profit. : 56 But it quickly exhausted its timber holdings and went bankrupt in 1933. After an initial investment of $8 million in 1923 the company was setting new records for the state's annual lumber cut. ![]() Today, the Sugar Pine Lumber Company is remembered as one of the most spectacular boom-and-bust stories of the early logging industry. They operated two railroads: the Sugar Pine Railroad, which connected Central Camp to the switching yard in Bass Lake, and the Minarets and Western Railway, a client carrier that transported whole logs from the Sierra Nevada to the company lumber mill. ![]() They built Central Camp, a permanent logging camp with lavish amenities, and Pinedale, site of the company lumber mill. : 39 The company was also a pioneer in the electrification of logging where newly plentiful hydroelectric power replaced the widespread use of steam engines. Unable to secure water rights to build a log flume, the company operated the “crookedest railroad ever built." They later developed the Minarets-type locomotive, the largest and most powerful saddle tank locomotive ever made. The Sugar Pine Lumber Company was an early 20th century logging operation and railroad in the Sierra Nevada. Sugar Pine Lumber Company Railroad, 10.82 mi (17.41 km) Minarets and Western Railway, 43.45 mi (69.93 km)
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