CA 3

[Max Rockatansky]

This time in the Gribblenation blog series we have a look at the modern CA 3.  The current CA 3 is the second time the number has been used in the California Stat Highway System (the original route was Oxnard-San Juan Capistrano) and is routed from a hanging end in Montague of Siskiyou County south to CA 36 near Peanut of Trinity County.  Present CA 3 is comprised of segments of segments of what were Legislative Routes; 35, 20, 82, and 3 (former US 99 in Yreka).  Intriguingly CA 3 between Yreka and Scott Mountain Summit occupies a corridor that was part California-Oregon Trail which was a popular stage route during the California Gold Rush. 

https://www.gribblenation.org/2020/12/california-state-route-3.html

[sparker]

This time in the Gribblenation blog series we have a look at the modern CA 3.  The current CA 3 is the second time the number has been used in the California Stat Highway System (the original route was Oxnard-San Juan Capistrano) and is routed from a hanging end in Montague of Siskiyou County south to CA 36 near Peanut of Trinity County.  Present CA 3 is comprised of segments of segments of what were Legislative Routes; 35, 20, 82, and 3 (former US 99 in Yreka).  Intriguingly CA 3 between Yreka and Scott Mountain Summit occupies a corridor that was part California-Oregon Trail which was a popular stage route during the California Gold Rush. 

https://www.gribblenation.org/2020/12/california-state-route-3.html

Made sense that the original CA-OR route would lie west of the current I-5/former US 99 alignment.  I can't imagine wagon trains trying to negotiate the narrow Sacramento River Canyon, including just getting down to the canyon bottom from the Shasta River "plateau" between Weed and Yreka.  And heading into the relatively gentler slopes to the east meant additional hazards in Modoc territory!  It took RR construction crews to pick and blast their way through the canyon in the 1880's before that pathway was even remotely viable; the old US 99 alignment largely used the line-side service road.  And at least between Fort Jones and Callahan the travelers would have had a reasonably easy go of it along the upper Scott River valley.  Still, getting over Scott Mountain and working one's way down the Trinity River and back over to Red Bluff would have been an ordeal in the 1840's and 1850's!  It would be interesting to determine whether the dominant migration direction was north-to-south or vice-versa.   Initial guess -- N>S during the gold rush years, but probably evened out after the Civil War, when the Willamette valley in OR was being settled.  Also, there was probably a sigh of relief after the 1880's when SP pushed the Siskiyou line through that provided the first non-horse/mule drawn travel between CA and OR -- despite the slog up the horseshoe "dogbones" up, over, and through Mt. Ashland.   

[kkt]

When was the railroad line that followed what's now US 97 from Weed to Klamath Falls get built?  It seems like it might have been earlier than the Siskiyou Line because of the gentler grades, but I am not sure.

[Max Rockatansky]

This time in the Gribblenation blog series we have a look at the modern CA 3.  The current CA 3 is the second time the number has been used in the California Stat Highway System (the original route was Oxnard-San Juan Capistrano) and is routed from a hanging end in Montague of Siskiyou County south to CA 36 near Peanut of Trinity County.  Present CA 3 is comprised of segments of segments of what were Legislative Routes; 35, 20, 82, and 3 (former US 99 in Yreka).  Intriguingly CA 3 between Yreka and Scott Mountain Summit occupies a corridor that was part California-Oregon Trail which was a popular stage route during the California Gold Rush. 

https://www.gribblenation.org/2020/12/california-state-route-3.html

Made sense that the original CA-OR route would lie west of the current I-5/former US 99 alignment.  I can't imagine wagon trains trying to negotiate the narrow Sacramento River Canyon, including just getting down to the canyon bottom from the Shasta River "plateau" between Weed and Yreka.  And heading into the relatively gentler slopes to the east meant additional hazards in Modoc territory!  It took RR construction crews to pick and blast their way through the canyon in the 1880's before that pathway was even remotely viable; the old US 99 alignment largely used the line-side service road.  And at least between Fort Jones and Callahan the travelers would have had a reasonably easy go of it along the upper Scott River valley.  Still, getting over Scott Mountain and working one's way down the Trinity River and back over to Red Bluff would have been an ordeal in the 1840's and 1850's!  It would be interesting to determine whether the dominant migration direction was north-to-south or vice-versa.   Initial guess -- N>S during the gold rush years, but probably evened out after the Civil War, when the Willamette valley in OR was being settled.  Also, there was probably a sigh of relief after the 1880's when SP pushed the Siskiyou line through that provided the first non-horse/mule drawn travel between CA and OR -- despite the slog up the horseshoe "dogbones" up, over, and through Mt. Ashland.   

If I recall my railroad history correctly the interest in getting a line north of Sacramento was originally driven by the mines at Shasta by way of the Central Pacific in Redding.  That more or less probably was a huge driver to getting people into the Sacramento River Canyon.  At the very least it would have been a huge motivation to improve the roads/trails along the Sacramento River.  By the late 1880s there was no doubt that Scott Valley had been replaced as a primary corridor of travel.

[Max Rockatansky]

When was the railroad line that followed what's now US 97 from Weed to Klamath Falls get built?  It seems like it might have been earlier than the Siskiyou Line because of the gentler grades, but I am not sure.

I want to say Dorris and Macdoel were plotted as sidings in the first decade of the 20th Century?  I know for sure Montague and Grenada were set up as sidings in 1887. 

[sparker]

When was the railroad line that followed what's now US 97 from Weed to Klamath Falls get built?  It seems like it might have been earlier than the Siskiyou Line because of the gentler grades, but I am not sure.

I want to say Dorris and Macdoel were plotted as sidings in the first decade of the 20th Century?  I know for sure Montague and Grenada were set up as sidings in 1887. 

Because of not only the Siskiyou Summit/Mt. Ashland grade, which featured a lengthy summit tunnel, numerous tight horseshoe-curves, and grades approaching 3% southbound -- but also four more summits between Grants Pass and Eugene, most of which required helper engines and crews for heavy freights -- SP began looking for a better alternative right around 1900.  Their chief engineer, William Hood (the one who laid out the famous Tehachapi Loop) had one goal -- go up a hill once, stay at a relatively high altitude, then come back down.  The gentler slopes east of the Cascades provided the basic alignment; how to get over there and back was the issue.  The California side was pretty straightforward; there was a locally owned logging line extending from just south of Weed to the pine and fir forests near Grass Lake; it ended at Macdoel at a loading platform.  SP purchased the line circa 1919 and rebuilt it to handle heavier traffic and locomotives, and extending it north to Klamath Falls.  At the same time the Hill Lines (Northern Pacific, Great Northern) owned Spokane, Portland and Seattle were building their N-S Oregon Trunk line south from Bend.  SP continued building north, meeting the OT line near Chemult.  At the same time, SP brought Hood out of retirement to plan a line over Willamette Pass from Chemult to Springfield.  He selected to follow the Middle Fork of the Willamette up to Oakridge, and the Hills Creek canyon to the top of the pass.  Because it required almost 4300 feet of rise in a 30-mile distance, Hood was forced to go up one side of the canyon, cross the creek on a horseshoe curve (which to this day crosses OR 58 on a high trestle) and "backtrack" 15 miles on a 2% grade before turning back in the "right" direction (SE) and carving out a roadbed near the top of a ridge.  It would skirt Crescent and Odell Lakes on their south sides before heading to Chemult with a straight shot down the gentle eastern slope.  Hood's vision was manifested -- between the Grass Lake summit northeast of Weed at about 5100 feet and the Willamette Pass at about 5200 between the lakes, the line never dips below 4300 feet, obviating the need for additional power once up the hill from each end.  Helper crews were added northbound at Dunsmuir down in the Sacramento River canyon and decoupled at the Grass Lake summit; likewise, helpers SB were added at Oakridge, separating from the train once over the top of the pass.  With heavier locomotives being introduced in the late 1920's, the original line NE of Weed was again rebuilt to handle those loads.  The line fully opened in 1927, with a "gold spike" ceremony at Grass Lake, CA.  The original Siskiyou line was relegated to local service augmented by lumber traffic centered in the Roseburg area; the through trains to Eugene and Portland were rerouted to the new line.  But the Depression damped traffic on both lines, so profitability for Sacramento/Bay Area-Oregon service didn't happen until WWII, when wartime building required heavy logging activities on both sides of the Cascades.  SP "spun off" the Siskiyou line to a short-line operator in 1987; because of recurring water-table leakage in the Mt. Ashland summit tunnel, the line is often severed there until repairs are made.  Both lines are expensive to operate and maintain; now that cost-cutting UP owns the main Klamath Falls line, traffic has been cut considerably, especially after the housing market collapsed in 2007, taking much of the lumber industry with it.  But besides what lumber traffic remains, much of the N-S rail traffic consists of moving containers between the various Pacific ports to where they happen to be needed -- so there's virtually no chance that any of the rail lines will be "mothballed" anytime soon. 

[kkt]

Thank you!  What a good history.

[sparker]

Thank you!  What a good history.

Thank you for the compliment.  A CA 3 addendum to this:  the Yreka-Montague section of CA 3 was intended to provide a state-maintained route from the Siskiyou county seat to the original SP RR depot in Montague -- it was considered that DOH would tend to keep the road plowed in winter, more so than the county.  SP maintained a local passenger train from Dunsmuir over the top of Siskiyou Summit to Grants Pass until the early 1960's; a similar train traversed the north end of the line from Ashland to Eugene; both "overlapped" in the Rogue River valley.  Each connected to through CA-Portland service at Dunsmuir and Eugene respectively.  So for about 70+ years, a passenger train made a Montague station stop daily in each direction.