I worked with the YW for over 18 years. I have seen times when we had to add a sixth car to handle the number of riders. During those times, the late Larry Bacon was the GM of the YW who had a wonderful raport' with business owners, the City of Yreka and the County of Siskiyou; they would all assist with advertising with major travel magazines and travel organizations.

As many of you know, I was the engineer of the 19 for about 6 years until I retired. We used to locate railroad enthusiasts while on the train and envite a few people up in the cab with us, one way, or both ways depending how many 'foamers' we had. It was always fun to chat with those people and they would leave the train with good vibrations about the ride. I'm sure they would tell others about their experiences which would foster other riders to come and ride the train. There's a couple of people who frequent the Altamont Press who have ridden in the cab with me and my fireman, Bill Ainsworth. A period of time passed and the company decided we should not allow people in the cab without an expensive "cab ticket". This, in my opinion took a lot of good will away from passengers.

We would often get travelers going to or returning from the Oregon Shakespear Theater who would write on their questionnaires how handy it was for their schedules to be able to ride the train and still make their destination.

The scenery along the route of the railroad between Timber Products and Montague has not changed much for over a hundred and fifty years and still lends breathtaking views of the changing 'moods' of Mt. Shasta, the pastoral scenery featuring cattle, horses, Bald and Golden Eagles, Deer, Mountain Lion, Bob Cats, Coyotes, turtles that lined the irrigation ditch along the rails, and even an occasional group of kids who would 'moon' everone on the train as we passed by.

The most frequent complaints we had about the excursion was the amount of time the passengers had to stay in Montague with nothing else to do. That was not always true. When I first started to volunteer with the YW, we would stay in Montague for an hour. At that time there was a 'train robbery,' a wandering musical group, horse drawn wagon rides and even a quick flight out of the local airport in a 1937 Steerman airplane. On the return leg of the run, train personnel would pass out pin-wheels to help entertain passengers and children.

As time went on, we received complaints there was not enough time for riders to eat their lunches purchased at the local cafes. So the decision was made to increase the time in Montague to one and a half hours. That worked OK until the above entertainments were slowly eliminated with the declining economic conditions in general. This led to an agonizing layover with little to do or see. This resulted in riders sitting in the local restaurants, waiting for the whistle to board the train. By doing so, the owners of the restaurants became hostile to the riders of the train because they were taking up table space thinking no locals could sit and eat. This was a bad experience for the riders. We found out at least one of the restaurants even made a separate menu, (with higher prices) for train customers!

As time went on the coaches had little to no maintenance and began to look shabby, which I'm sure was a turn-off to most riders who expected more for their dollars.

The tunnel 13 fire; the freight fee disputes between the shippers and the C.O.R.P. along with the declining national economy has had a dire effect on the YW. Frankly, I can't see how Court Hammond has been able to keep the doors open this long.

I truly hate to see the Blue Goose with the 19 leave Yreka, but I can understand the move from a business point of view. Unless there's some sort of miracle, we have lost the YW forever. She has not really died ... she just fades away.