Re: CCT Engines
Author: Jeff Moore
Date: 03-03-2009 - 08:24
Yes, they should still be at both places.
Two Alcos are in Willits, CCT S-1 #42 and RS-1 #80. I seem to remember an effort by Western Pacific Railroad Museum to acquire the #80 within the past year, as it is a former Tidewater Southern unit, but I've lost track of where that effort stands. Both of these locomotives are/were in private ownership.
The former CCT GP-7 #70 is slowly rotting away in Eureka along with four other ex-SP GP-9's.
All three of these originally came to the North Coast for use on the North Coast Daylight excursions in the mid-1980's. However, they never saw any actual use in that service. Eureka Southern and California Western periodically leased one or both of the Alcos as needed, and Eureka Southern purchased the #70 around 1988. It was one of two locomotives purchased by the North Coast Railroad when they took over the Eureka Southern in 1992 (ex-Arcata & Mad River GE 44-ton #104 was the other). The #70 last operated around 2001 when it was used to move an old passenger car that used to be a gift shop in old town Eureka several miles up the coast to a more secure storage site inside the old Arcata Redwood (now Simpson) plant about halfway between Eureka and Arcata.
Jeff Moore
Elko, NV