McCloud River Railroad Company
Locomotive #19

Baldwin 2-8-2
Built- 4/1915
c/n- #42000
Drivers- 48"
Cylinders- 20x28
Weight- 178,400 lbs.
Boiler pressure- 180 lbs.
Tractive effort- 35,700 lbs.


Seven years passed after the #18 arrived on the property before traffic from the Pit River Railroad and log spurs pushing ever deeper into the woods again forced the McCloud to go locomotive shopping. The search led the company to the future #19, then in Mexico City. Despite having been ordered by the same initial customer and built to the same overall specifications as the #18, and being built only five months after it, the McCloud shops found many minor differences from the #18. The shops did turn up several bullet holes during its conditioning for service, which prompted the railroad to unofficially name the #19 the Pancho.

Builder's photograph of the locomotive that would become McCloud River #19. Jeff Moore collection.

The future McCloud River #19, seen here in Mexico lettered as Cia de Real del Monte y Pachuca #105, a road owned by United Mining & Smelting. Note the locomotive had been converted from coal to oil by this point. Courtesy Yreka Western archives.

The #19 in Mt. Shasta City. Date on the neagtive sleeve for this image is 19 May 1947, but several features indicate the photo dates from the middle to later 1930s.

Sometime around 1938 the railroad replaced the lower half of the smokebox. The #19 is seen here near across the street from the McCloud Hotel shortly after the railroad completed that work, note the seam running along the side of the box. The rebuild also forced the relocation of the builder's plates and the elimination of the clean out plugs. George Landrock collection.

The #19 switching in McCloud sometime in the 1930s. The #19, like most McCloud road power, carried a single phase air pump on the engineer's side in addition to the cross compound pump on the fireman's side.

The #19 on the McCloud turntable around the early to middle 1940s after recieving some work, including relocating the headlight to the middle of the smoke box and adding safety railings to the tender.

Robert Hanft caught the #19 next to the water tower in McCloud on 21 April 1948. The #19 had lost its single phase air pump in favor of a powered reverse by this point.

A broadside view of the #19.

One last view of the #19 in McCloud, this one on 15 September 1952 about a year before its sale to the Yreka Western. Van Horn image.

A partial side view of the #19 in Yreka after arriving on that road. The #19, later joined by the #18, closed out the steam era on the YW, but still remained available for special excursions after that road bought its first diesel in 1958.

The YW #19 with a freight bound for the SP interchange in Montague. C.G. Heimerdinger Jr. photo.

The #19 is seen here in Yreka about 1964. C.G. Heimerdinger photo.

Between 1971 and 1987 the #19 powered the hugely popular Blue Goose excursion trains on the Oregon, Pacific & Eastern Railroad out of Cottage Grove, Oregon. The locomotive starred in two Hollywood productions during this time period, Emporer of the North and Stand By Me. C.G. Heimerdinger Jr. photo.

Kyle Railways sold its interest in the OP&E in 1987, and in 1988 they brought the #19 back to Yreka. It started pulling passenger excursions over the YW, again using the Blue Goose name, in 1989. The #19 is seen here at the Yreka Western in February 1991 with the former McCloud River caboose #025 for a publicity event.

The #19 made two return visits to McCloud after its sale to the Yreka Western, first on a double head trip with the #25 in June 1962 and then again in the spring of 1994 on a special excursion chartered by Trains Unlimited Tours. The locomotive, temporarily relettered for McCloud using a magnetic strip, is seen here arriving back into McCloud on 30 April 1994. Photos of both events can be found in the Passenger Operations section of this website. Keith E. Ardinger photo.

The #19 on the Yreka Western in the early 2000s. Roger Titus photo.

The #19 with two other pieces of former McCloud equipment, caboose #025 and an incentive per diem boxcar converted to a passenger flat, during the local balloon festival. Roger Titus photo.

Two views of the #19 loaded on a flatcar in Montague, California, on 19 March 2017, waiting to be picked up by the Central Oregon & Pacific for the start on its journey to the Age of Steam Roundhouse in Ohio. Jeff Moore photos.



Shortly after the #19 arrived in Ohio the Age of Steam shop forces repainted the locomotive into a close replica of the scheme it wore for the Emporer of the North filming. Cale Leiphart photo, used with permission.

In late 2020 the Age of Steam decided to complete a full overhaul of the #19, it is seen here in the disassembled in the back shop in March 2023. Glen Holland photo.