The Gold Spike Special arrived in Mt. Shasta City in the early evening of 2 July in a driving rain storm. The McCloud River Railroad had its locomotives 28, 29, and 24 on hand, the #24 primarily to provide steam heat to the cars. During the events that evening the voting of the excursionists awarded the title of "Miss Gold Spike" to Jo Ann Theboldt Beffidge, who had been "Miss Mount Shasta".

The main event happened the next day, Sunday, 3 July 1955. The railroad gave the #25 a special gold paint scheme for the event, and 16-year old artist Woody Hansen from Mt. Shasta City painted a mural depicting the driving of the gold spike at Promontory Summit in 1869 on its tender. The Arcata & Mad River Railroad, the oldest operating railroad in California, provided a redwood tie for the event. Four spikes, two gold and two silver, would be driven into the tie during the ceremonies. The Central Coast club provided three of the spikes while the town of Burney provided the fourth. Three trains departed McCloud for Burney that morning. The #28, #29, and #25 led the first train, the Special from the Bay Area, which carried the spikes plus the ceremonial last tie on the #25's pilot. Locomotives #30/#31 led the train carrying people from McCloud while the #32/#33 powered a train carrying people from Dunsmuir and Mt. Shasta City. Upon arrival in Burney the #25 crashed through a paper barrier hung across the tracks, which was shortly followed by the spike driving ceremony. After that had been done buses and private autos carried the excursionists into Burney for a parade, rodeo, logging demonstrations, and the noon meal.

The three trains departed back for McCloud after the festivities. The Gold Spike Special was on a tight schedule to return to the Bay Area, so the railroad coupled the #29, #32, and #33 to the #25 and started shoving it up the hill towards Mt. Shasta. However, just past Hooper the #29 rolled a rail, which derailed both it, the #25, and the #33. The locomotives were on the downhill side of the train at the time, and after determining the mess would take some time to clean up the McCloud River authorized the Southern Pacific power waiting in Mt. Shasta City to come over the hill to get the passenger train, which continued onto the Bay Area without further incident. The McCloud crews shortly got their power rerailed the repaired the tracks, and then settled down to running their expanded system. The #25 immediately went back to log train service out of Kinyon and then Pondosa through the rest of the summer and into the fall; it would have made for quite a sight.