Minarets and Western Railway

Minarets and Western Railway Company

Locomotive 102 hauling a load of log cars to the Pinedale Mill.
Overview
Parent company	Sugar Pine Lumber Company
Headquarters	Pinedale, California
Locale	Fresno County, California, Madera County, California
Dates of operation	1921–1933
Successor	Southern Pacific
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Length	53 mi (85 km)

The Minarets and Western Railway was a Class II common carrier that operated in Fresno County, California, from 1921 to 1933. The railway was owned by the Sugar Pine Lumber Company and was built the same year the lumber company was incorporated so that it could haul timber from the forest near Minarets (northeast of Friant) to its sawmill at Pinedale (near Fresno). The southern portion of the line was operated with joint trackage rights with Southern Pacific.

During the Great Depression, in 1933 the lumber company went bankrupt. The track north of Friant was abandoned and the Pinedale Branch was bought by Southern Pacific, where it was later known as the Pinedale Spur of the Clovis Branch. Southern Pacific later sold the spur and Clovis Branch to the San Joaquin Valley Railroad (SJVR). SJVR abandoned the line in the 1990s and today the Pinedale Spur is preserved as the Fresno-Clovis Rail Trail.^[1]