Carol Wolf

The Railroad that Love Built Carol Wolf

Pause before you enter Yosemite National Park! Come and Ride the Logger, a steam train from another era. This is the story of the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad, its beginnings, its history, its operation, and its locale. To ride the Logger is to experience a time in the history of California when the Sierra Nevada rang with the sound of axes, the roar of the sawmill, and the whistles of the steam trains. The Shay locomotives, the most powerful narrow gauge engines of their time, hauled dozens of loaded cars up steep grades and through tight turns other trains could not make, while the forests were clear-cut to build the towns and cities of California and the United States. The Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad has been running for 54 years, giving patrons the experience of riding the steam train through the Sierra Nevada National Forest.