The Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad (YMSPRR) is a historic 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge railway with two operating steam train locomotives located near Fish Camp, California, in the Sierra National Forest near the southern entrance to Yosemite National Park. Rudy Stauffer organized the YMSPRR in 1961, utilizing historic railroad track, rolling stock and locomotives to construct a tourist line along the historic route of the Madera Sugar Pine Lumber Company.
Service began with the purchase of three-truck Shay locomotive No. 10 from the West Side Lumber Company railway of Tuolumne, California. Built in 1928, No. 10 was recognized as the largest narrow gauge Shay locomotive—and one of the last ever constructed. After his retirement in 1981, Rudy Stauffer was succeeded by his son, Max, as the railroad's owner and operator. In 1986, the YMSPRR purchased Shay No. 15—also a former West Side Lumber Company locomotive—from the West Side & Cherry Valley Railroad tourist line in Tuolumne.
The two steam locomotives operate daily during the summer months, while the railroad's Model A "Jenny" railcars, capable of carrying about a dozen passengers, typically handle operations during the off-season.
Read more about Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad: History, Motive Power, Points of Interest
Famous quotes containing the words mountain, sugar, pine and/or railroad:
“The mountain may be approached more easily and directly on horseback and on foot from the northeast side, by the Aroostook road, and the Wassataquoik River; but in that case you see much less of the wilderness, none of the glorious river and lake scenery, and have no experience of the batteau and the boatman’s life.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is no sugar cane that is sweet at both ends.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Think how stood the white pine tree on the shore of the Chesuncook, its branches soughing with the four winds, and every individual needle trembling in the sunlight,—think how it stands with it now,—sold, perchance, to the New England Friction-Match Company!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say—I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”
—Harriet Tubman (1821–1913)