he YV timetable cover-
ing August 1939 listed two
daily first class passenger trains and two daily (except Sundays)
second class freight trains.
The eastbound (toward Yosemite National Park) No. 2 pas-
senger train departed the Southern Pacific RR interchange in
Merced each day at 5:30 a.m. after picking up any Pullmans
destined for Yosemite National Park. It arrived at the end of the
line, at the western boundary of Yosemite National Park, at 9:40
a.m. It then departed El Portal as the westbound No. 3 at 7 p.m.,
arriving back at the SP depot at 10:45 p.m. Figure 1 shows the
general route of the prototype fromMerced to El Portal.
The two timetabled freight trains were the No. 8 and No. 9,
actually daily log trains which ran between Merced Falls at MP
24 (milepost) and Incline at MP 73. Merced Falls was the loca-
tion of the Yosemite Sugar Pine Lumber Company sawmill,
drying yards, and planing mill. Incline was the lower end of an
8,600-foot-long logging incline down which the YSPLCo low-
ered loaded log cars from the cutting areas back in the woods.
The crew of the No. 8 went on duty at 7 a.m., pulled out the
empty log cars, ran around them and added a caboose before
departing at 8 a.m. They arrived at Incline at 11:10 a.m.,
dropped the empties and grabbed their caboose, running
light for the nearby wye at Moss Canyon. Upon turning, they
became the No. 9 and returned to Incline to pick up the loaded
log cars there. They departed at 12:10 p.m. and were back at
Merced Falls at 3:50 p.m.
I share this level of detail for these two trains so that you can
better understand them. What I realized, once I studied the pro-
totype YV timetable, is that the passenger train passed Merced
Falls at MP 24 even before the log train crew went on duty. That
passenger train then laid over at El Portal and departed back
toward Merced 3 hours after the log train crew had tied up. So,
neither train had any meets while out on the line.
Of course, an employee timetable only lists regular timetabled
trains. A railroad could also run extra trains under train orders
issued by the dispatcher. These extra trains (along with the
timetabled trains) would be listed each day on the Dispatcher’s
Record of Movement of Trains, also known as a train sheet.
The late Al Rose, a well-known railfan in the 1930s-1980s, was
able to collect nearly the entire set of train sheets from the YV
when it was abandoned, along with a number of dispatcher
train order books. After realizing how passionate I am about
the YV, Al gave me photocopies of all of the train sheets for
August 1939, along with the original train order book covering
that month.
From these train sheets I learned that the YV ran a pair of
extras every day, called the Merced Local and the El Portal
Local. These freight trains departed their respective yards at
around 4 p.m., usually meeting at Detwiler near the middle of
the line. A typical train order for these two trains would read:
Eng 26 run extra Merced to El Portal meet Ext 29 west at
Detwiler Eng 29 run extra El Portal to Merced.
After making up their trains, these two freights worked sidings
along the line, making set-outs and pickups as specified in their
switch lists. With a departure at 4 p.m. or so, the westbound
extra needed to be clear of the westbound passenger train,
which left El Portal at 7 p.m. and which would overtake it west
of El Portal. The eastbound extra likewise needed to be clear of
the same passenger train.
Getting Real column - 4
MRH-Jul 2013
