The McCloud Railway (reporting mark MCR) was a class III railroad operated around Mount Shasta, California.

On June 27, 2005, the railroad applied with the Surface Transportation Board to abandon all MCR track beyond 3.3 miles (5.3 km) east of McCloud.

At Hambone the ownership changed to BNSF (Great Northern) but was operated by the McCloud River Railroad.

That line extended to Lookout Junction where it connected with the Great Northern Railway mainline just north of Bieber.

The MCR was originally built as the McCloud River Railroad chartered on January 22, 1897, as a forest railway bringing logs to the company sawmill on the Southern Pacific Railroad at a place called Upton a few miles north of Mount Shasta.

The locomotives shifted from wood to oil fuel as the railroad extended into the forests east of McCloud in 1907.

[2] In 1922 Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) built branches south from the McCloud main line at Bartle to build hydropower plants on the Pit River.

During this period, the McCloud Lumber Company, who owned the railroad, decided to build a branch north-east to access the forests there.

Meanwhile, the Great Northern and Western Pacific Railroads were building a north–south mainline, with plans to meet at Lookout.

The McCloud decided to continue their lumber branch to serve as an interchange with the Great Northern and Western Pacific.

A small section of line between McCloud and Mount Shasta remained open briefly for excursion and dinner train service.

As timber demand declined, the railroad slowly cut back although new ownership also led to its downfall.

However, BNSF started rebuilding the eastern end of the Hambone Branch for car storage.

There is also talk of bringing back the ex-Shasta Sunset Dinner Cars, none of which are currently being used on the St. Maries River Railroad (one is in use on the Niles Canyon Railway).

The railroad's bridge over Lake Britton was used in an iconic scene in the film Stand by Me and was used in Aerosmith's music video Livin' on the Edge.

By this time, diesels were arriving and two were assigned on the Branch; one to bring a train from McCloud to Burney, and another to exchange loads/empties at Berry.

When the McCloud Railway took over operations, they used virtually the same schedule, except for having one diesel pull an excursion, sometimes with the 25, and the same was true in the evening.

The road used Baldwin's DRS-6-6-1500/AS-616 series due to their impressive tractive effort; far more than any comparable ALCo or EMD offering at the time.

To relieve the aging Baldwin diesels, the railroad bought three EMD SD38 locomotives numbered 36–38 in April 1969 (Builder No.

[4] The units were used for all duties along the line, and as traffic increased on the road, the railroad ordered a single SD38-2, built August 1974 (Builder No.

25, the steam engine which appeared in Stand By Me and also Bound for Glory, was out of service from 2001 until September 2007, when it was rebuilt for another movie deal, but that one fell through.