Uploaded October 2014 | Updated September 2026, 29 minutes ago
On my way to Portland in September, 2014, I took a detour through Fort Bragg to ride California Western’s Skunk Train. During a visit the prior year, I learned that a tunnel collapse had shortened the ride to just 3.5 miles. Now the tunnel was open again and I was looking forward to the full trip including a cab ride back to Fort Bragg from Northspur. The outbound ride can be seen here youtube.com/watch?v=nl55rqRcLyg
I climbed aboard the EMD chop-nosed GP9 just after that video ended. We were under way by the time I got situated and pulled out my video camera. The engineer was called Pepper by everyone. Unfortunately, I never did get his last name. He’s a retired school teacher and got involved with the railroad 35 years ago as a way to make some extra income during his summers.
The weather was drizzly most of the day so the windows on the engine were constantly covered with raindrops. I decided to leave them there even though I had control of my own window wiper. Occasionally I would clear the drops off camera so as not to distract the viewer with the constant click-clack that can be heard on the engineer’s side. As fate would have it, we pulled into Fort Bragg in clear, sunny weather.
On my way to Portland in September, 2014, I took a detour through Fort Bragg to ride California Western’s Skunk Train. During a visit the prior year, I learned that a tunnel collapse had shortened the ride to just 3.5 miles. Now the tunnel was open again and I was looking forward to the full trip including a cab ride back to Fort Bragg from Northspur. The outbound ride can be seen here youtube.com/watch?v=nl55rqRcLyg
I climbed aboard the EMD chop-nosed GP9 just after that video ended. We were under way by the time I got situated and pulled out my video camera. The engineer was called Pepper by everyone. Unfortunately, I never did get his last name. He’s a retired school teacher and got involved with the railroad 35 years ago as a way to make some extra income during his summers.
The weather was drizzly most of the day so the windows on the engine were constantly covered with raindrops. I decided to leave them there even though I had control of my own window wiper. Occasionally I would clear the drops off camera so as not to distract the viewer with the constant click-clack that can be heard on the engineer’s side. As fate would have it, we pulled into Fort Bragg in clear, sunny weather.
