West Side Flume & Lumber Company The West Side Flume & Lumber Company was founded in May 1898 to log of land outside of the town of Carter (now called
Tuolumne). A long gauge railroad was laid into the woods east of the town.
Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite Valley Railroad In 1900, the lumber company incorporated their railroad as a
common carrier called the Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite Valley Railroad. Although it never reached either
Hetch Hetchy or
Yosemite valley, the company hoped to attract tourist traffic.
West Side Lumber Railroad In 1925, the
Pickering Lumber Company purchased the West Side Lumber Company.
Westside and Cherry Valley Railroad In 1968, Frank Cottle leased the lower end of the railroad from Pickering Lumber and opened the Westside and Cherry Valley Railroad as a tourist attraction. He restored locomotives #12 and #15 to run trains on tracks laid on the old mill site. In 1970, the Pickering Lumber company took over the operation from Cottle and extended the line by 8 miles to River Bridge. In 1972, Fiberboard Corporation (which owned Pickering Lumber Company) transferred the railroad to another subsidiary, Trimont Land Company, with the rationale that the property might be suitable as a real estate development. The plan to carve up the property did not come to fruition, and in 1976, the railroad was sold to
Glen Bell, the founder of the
Taco Bell restaurant chain, who invested over $10 million in the railroad. This gauge railroad used the lower section of the track and several
steam locomotives of the West Side Lumber Company railway. The operation also offered boat rides on the old mill pond and
RV parking. The theme park/railroad did not attract the anticipated number of visitors, and in 1981, Bell sold the 340-acre property to Henley Management Company for less than $500,000 and the railroad was shut down. In 1986, Quality Resorts of America bought it from Henley, and converted the property into an RV park, with limited railroad service. It sold off much of the rolling stock to other railroads, such as the
Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad, the
Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad and the
Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum. Today, the railroad is no longer in operation, but part of the right-of-way is a hiking trail. == Locomotives ==