The Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture was founded in 2008 as a way to support and develop a community-building institution focused on railroad culture in the western United States. The BBCRC is located on the site of a long-abandoned junkyard amid several acres of forest, chaparral, and wetlands directly adjacent to Black Butte Siding, the junction of the Union Pacific and Central Oregon and Pacific railroads right on the southeast edge of Weed, California at Milepost 345. Directly across from our site is the Black Butte water tank, a historic 1926 steam-era structure. Mt. Shasta towers a few miles to the east and Black Butte, a 6300' volcanic cinder cone, is just two miles to our southeast.

The BBCRC is committed to conserving and restoring local railroad features and equipment and the ecology of the Black Butte area. We are also working to develop a resource center and creative arts and music space at our site. While we have supporters nationwide, we are also connecting to local institutions and people around Weed and wider Siskiyou County. The BBCRC is interested in historic railroad equipment but also focuses on the human side of railroading. Several of our key supporters and board members are rail workers. We have a special interest in what we call nomadic railroad culture - people such as "boomer" rail workers, union organizers, migratory laborers, and others who have historically worked and traveled on the rails - their stories, art, and music. For more info on our specific projects and our organization click on the links to the left.