News

Today we had sad news at Black Butte. Our caretaker, Walter “Gonzo” Lemanski passed away of natural causes. He was 54 years old, a retired tramp who loved the Black Butte area. Originally from Detroit, Michigan, he lived in Odgen, Utah, Roseville, CA, and Santa Cruz before coming to the Dunsmuir/Black Butte area where he was our caretaker for the past two years. He was a good friend to us all and will greatly missed. An informal memorial service was held for him on Saturday, November 15 at noon at Black Butte.

This month we successfully moved our two newly acquired historic railcars to Black Butte. We have located these steam-era wooden cars right in our main compound on some newly laid track segments. The cars will form the basis of a library/resource center/info shop project that we plan to develop in 2009 and beyond. See our Railcar Preservation project page for more details.

Added a page showing caboose rehab work done during our second summer, 2008.

Added numerous revisions to the “Bird List“, “Tree and Shrub List“, “Small (Non-woody) Plant List“, and added a new “Black Butte Critter List” to the “Local Ecology” page

In mid-July the BBCRC made an arrangement with the Heritage Junction Museum in McCloud to acquire two historic pieces of rail equipment — an ex-Sacramento Northern wood boxcar and an ex-Pacific Fruit Express iced refrigerator car. Both cars date from around 1912 and are in reasonably good condition. We plan to move both cars to Black Butte later this year. The boxcar is intended to become a resource center/library/info shop and arts/project space for visitors to Black Butte. To make this happen, we need to raise several thousand dollars over the next 2-3 months.

Added a page devoted to Railroad Tattoos!

In early 2008 the Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture received our official designation as a US government recognized 501(c)3 non-profit corporation. This means we are now eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions from the public, corporations and other grant-making institutions. Let us know if you have any potential contributions (books, films, ‘zines, artwork, historical photographs, cash, etc.) related to our mission of documenting nomadic railroad culture and the railroading history and local ecology of the Black Butte area. Also, we are looking for a boxcar or similar railroad car that could be brought to our site for use as a resource center/art space.

Bad news on the local railroading front. In mid-January the CORP line began phasing down its south end operations. By mid-April the plan is to completely shut down the route over the Siskiyous from Black Butte to Medford. This follows on CORP’s shutdown of its Coos Bay line late last year. It’s all due to CORP being taken over by the greedy “Fortress” investment company, a company that appears to have as its only agenda squeezing out short-term profits for its investors. It is a blow to the workers who have worked hard to keep the CORP line going as well as to our local community. Hopefully another operator, one with a little more integrity and a longer term view than Fortress, will be able to take over the south end and resume operations. In the meantime, we will see CORP reduce its operations (local customers around Weed will still be switched) and, most likely, fewer UP trains stopping for work at Black Butte.

Added a page showing photos of the rehabilitation work done on the caboose during the Summer of 2007.

A unique six-person railbike, donated to us by the WP Museum in Portola, has now arrived at Black Butte. Thanks to everyone you helped facilitate this donation.