While scanning up prints from my collection, I happened upon this view of the Yosemite Portland Cement Co. incline at Emory, California. I snapped the photo around 1967, and it shows the grade down from the loading bins near the top of the mountain. Recent photos posted online show this hasn't changed much, except the roof on the bin house is now gone. 

O.K., this isn't a freight car, but wait Grasshopper, and all shall be revealed.

The YPCCo. went into business in the 1920s. It's quarries were located atop this mountain above the Merced River on the Yosemite Valley Railroad. The stone was lowered to the YV via this double-track incline. From here the YV hauled the limestone to kilns near Merced, California, where the stone was burned to make cement. There is a nice web site with photos at http://memorableplaces.com/yvrr/CEMENT/YPCo.Blind.html . In 1944 the whole company was sold to Henry J. Kaiser (yes, the Liberty Ship guy). He immediately dismantled the kilns and other machinery which were sold to a concern in Venezuela. It isn't clear if any equipment from the Emory quarries also went to Venezuela, or if it was just scrapped. Kaiser is said to have bought the YPCCo. just to eliminate a competitor, though that may just be bad PR. It is possible the quarries were nearly played out, or that the YPCCo. was becoming unprofitable due to the quarry location and shipping costs.

In any case, with the timber operations that fed the YV gone and automobiles cutting into their passenger traffic even before WWII, the loss of the limestone traffic was the last straw for the YV. The line shut down a few months later.

O.K. Here come the freight cars. The YV owned a small fleet of ex-Great Northern ore cars to cover the limestone traffic. There were, IIRC, 50 cars in this fleet. The Sierra Railroad bought some of these, and several are still at Jamestown on display at Railtown 1897, and one more in Sacramento at the CSRM (in hideous orange paint when I last saw it, though the cars seem to have been black on the Sierra). A few others were cast off to other shortlines for maintenance-of-way purposes. Without a detailed roster I can't say if they were sold directly by the YV or its scrappers to these other lines, or were for a time they were owned by the SRR. McCloud River Railroad had several, Amador Central owned two, and the Yreka Western had at least one, though as my father's photo shows, this car still had the GN side walkways, and may have come directly to the YW from the GN. How these got from the YV to the buyers with their archbar trucks circa 1945 is a head scratcher, but possibly the cars had variances for one-time moves.

Westerfield offers this kit in several road names, including the VY as their 3452. It is still in their catalog.

Maybe Jack Burgess will want to chime in here, as the YV is his special interest and I may have garbled some things in this summary.

Yours Aye,

Garth Groff  🦆

While scanning up prints from my collection, I happened upon this view of the Yosemite Portland Cement Co. incline at Emory, California. I snapped the photo around 1967, and it shows the grade down from the loading bins near the top of the mountain. Recent photos posted online show this hasn't changed much, except the roof on the bin house is now gone. 

O.K., this isn't a freight car, but wait Grasshopper, and all shall be revealed.

The YPCCo. went into business in the 1920s. It's quarries were located atop this mountain above the Merced River on the Yosemite Valley Railroad. The stone was lowered to the YV via this double-track incline. From here the YV hauled the limestone to kilns near Merced, California, where the stone was burned to make cement. There is a nice web site with photos at http://memorableplaces.com/yvrr/CEMENT/YPCo.Blind.html . In 1944 the whole company was sold to Henry J. Kaiser (yes, the Liberty Ship guy). He immediately dismantled the kilns and other machinery which were sold to a concern in Venezuela. It isn't clear if any equipment from the Emory quarries also went to Venezuela, or if it was just scrapped. Kaiser is said to have bought the YPCCo. just to eliminate a competitor, though that may just be bad PR. It is possible the quarries were nearly played out, or that the YPCCo. was becoming unprofitable due to the quarry location and shipping costs.

In any case, with the timber operations that fed the YV gone and automobiles cutting into their passenger traffic even before WWII, the loss of the limestone traffic was the last straw for the YV. The line shut down a few months later.

O.K. Here come the freight cars. The YV owned a small fleet of ex-Great Northern ore cars to cover the limestone traffic. There were, IIRC, 50 cars in this fleet. The Sierra Railroad bought some of these, and several are still at Jamestown on display at Railtown 1897, and one more in Sacramento at the CSRM (in hideous orange paint when I last saw it, though the cars seem to have been black on the Sierra). A few others were cast off to other shortlines for maintenance-of-way purposes. Without a detailed roster I can't say if they were sold directly by the YV or its scrappers to these other lines, or were for a time they were owned by the SRR. McCloud River Railroad had several, Amador Central owned two, and the Yreka Western had at least one, though as my father's photo shows, this car still had the GN side walkways, and may have come directly to the YW from the GN. How these got from the YV to the buyers with their archbar trucks circa 1945 is a head scratcher, but possibly the cars had variances for one-time moves.

Westerfield offers this kit in several road names, including the VY as their 3452. It is still in their catalog.

Maybe Jack Burgess will want to chime in here, as the YV is his special interest and I may have garbled some things in this summary.

Yours Aye,

Garth Groff  🦆

While scanning up prints from my collection, I happened upon this view of the Yosemite Portland Cement Co. incline at Emory, California. I snapped the photo around 1967, and it shows the grade down from the loading bins near the top of the mountain. Recent photos posted online show this hasn't changed much, except the roof on the bin house is now gone. 

O.K., this isn't a freight car, but wait Grasshopper, and all shall be revealed.

The YPCCo. went into business in the 1920s. It's quarries were located atop this mountain above the Merced River on the Yosemite Valley Railroad. The stone was lowered to the YV via this double-track incline. From here the YV hauled the limestone to kilns near Merced, California, where the stone was burned to make cement. There is a nice web site with photos at http://memorableplaces.com/yvrr/CEMENT/YPCo.Blind.html . In 1944 the whole company was sold to Henry J. Kaiser (yes, the Liberty Ship guy). He immediately dismantled the kilns and other machinery which were sold to a concern in Venezuela. It isn't clear if any equipment from the Emory quarries also went to Venezuela, or if it was just scrapped. Kaiser is said to have bought the YPCCo. just to eliminate a competitor, though that may just be bad PR. It is possible the quarries were nearly played out, or that the YPCCo. was becoming unprofitable due to the quarry location and shipping costs.

In any case, with the timber operations that fed the YV gone and automobiles cutting into their passenger traffic even before WWII, the loss of the limestone traffic was the last straw for the YV. The line shut down a few months later.

O.K. Here come the freight cars. The YV owned a small fleet of ex-Great Northern ore cars to cover the limestone traffic. There were, IIRC, 50 cars in this fleet. The Sierra Railroad bought some of these, and several are still at Jamestown on display at Railtown 1897, and one more in Sacramento at the CSRM (in hideous orange paint when I last saw it, though the cars seem to have been black on the Sierra). A few others were cast off to other shortlines for maintenance-of-way purposes. Without a detailed roster I can't say if they were sold directly by the YV or its scrappers to these other lines, or were for a time they were owned by the SRR. McCloud River Railroad had several, Amador Central owned two, and the Yreka Western had at least one, though as my father's photo shows, this car still had the GN side walkways, and may have come directly to the YW from the GN. How these got from the YV to the buyers with their archbar trucks circa 1945 is a head scratcher, but possibly the cars had variances for one-time moves.

Westerfield offers this kit in several road names, including the VY as their 3452. It is still in their catalog.

Maybe Jack Burgess will want to chime in here, as the YV is his special interest and I may have garbled some things in this summary.

Yours Aye,

Garth Groff  🦆