To answer some questions raised but not answered in the Wikipedia article...

YW passenger equipment back in the day (1990s) consisted of two ex-Milwaukee Road coaches brought in from another Kyle operation- maybe California Western?- plus a passenger flat (former Trailer Train) and three ex-SP "Subs", all leased from Great Western Railroad Museum. The flat had been equipped with benches and railings for some of GW's McCloud excursions in the early 1980s, and the regular excursion train ran with it, the two MILW coaches, and two of the SP Subs. The body of the third Sub ended up on the ground behind the shop.

The YW through the 1990s ran the passenger trains five days a week. Freights ran twice a week, one round trip to Montague on Tuesdays and then an extra movement usually Friday afternoon to switch the sawmills. Shippers at the time included Hi-Ridge Lumber, good for around 6 woodchip and 1-3 lumber loads each week; Timber Products, good for 3-5 chip loads per week; and then the propane dealership that occasionally got inbound loads and sporadic outbound gold ore concentrate loads trucked out of the Trinities. These were the steadiest shippers. This all changed around 1998/1999 when Hi-Ridge abruptly closed. This was around the time Kyle's business partner elected to sell their railroads except for the YW to States Rail; States had zero interest in the YW due to the dicey economics, especially with the largest freight shipper having just closed.

The remnants of the Kyle organization received permission to abandon the YW, but before they could consummate the Rocky Mountain group stepped in and bought it. This coincided closely with the Central Oregon & Pacific working with Timber Products to shift some of their traffic to rail; the Timber Products plant in Yreka exists to produce veneer and peeler cores that are sent north to TP plants in Medford and Grants Pass for conversion into plywood. That traffic moved by truck, but around 2000 CORP successfully landed that traffic based on promised same day service between the facilities. YW freight traffic had been hovering around 350 or so carloads a year for a couple decades, this traffic shot up to 2,500 carloads a year when the TP traffic started moving. The new owners restarted passenger excursions with the #19, but by this point the two MILW cars were in very poor shape, and as such the excursion trains used the passenger flat, two of the SP Subs, and the half open ex-McCloud River caboose.

The YW was in pretty good shape for as long as the TP traffic moved. However, it didn't last. The first interruption came when Tunnel 13 burned and collapsed in the early 2000s, which effectively shut the YW down for a year or two. Freight and passenger operations resumed when CORP reopened the line over the Siskiyous, only to shut down again a couple years later when CORP stopped operating over the Siskiyous in the face of the 2008 recession. That was effectively the end of the YW.

As for what happened to the passenger equipment, the road scrapped the two MILW cars around the middle to later 2000s. Then around 2009 or so Great Western sold the passenger flat to the City of Prineville Railroad for use on its excursions with the Mt. Emily Lumber Shay and traded the three Subs to the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad in exchange for their help in moving the former Sierra #38 from McCloud to Merrill, Oregon. OCSR moved one of the cars to Tillamook almost immediately, then finally moved the other two north around the spring of 2018. As for the ex-MR caboose, YW moved it to northeastern Oregon about 2012 during the brief time they were involved with the Wallowa-Union Railroad.

In all reality the YW should have been abandoned 10 years ago, it's only survived because of scrapping everything they can and a lot of questionable business practices. TP by all accounts would love to put their traffic back on rails but will not deal with the YW for as long as the current management remains associated with the property.

That's an extended thumbnail view of how we got to where we are.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV