Big Valley Gazette, Bieber - 26 June 1930 - ICC Grants Road Link with Western Pacific. After waiting fifty years Big Valley is to have a railroad. The Interstate Commerce Commission's decision made public last Friday gave the Western Pacific and Great Northern Railroads permission to proceed with their Klamath Falls-Bieber-Keddie extension program. The ruling mean early construction of some 200 miles of new track, which will bridge the gap now existing between the southernmost terminal of the Great Northern system at Klamath Falls, Ore., and the main line of the Western Pacific at Keddie. It means the expenditure, according to H.M. Adams, president of Western Pacific, of more than $14,000,000 in Northern California, beginning probably next month. It means, Adams predicted that before the end of next year Great Northern and Western Pacific trains will be operating over the new road, linking the bay region more closely to the Northwest, offering a new transcontinental route and opening up a vast area in the northern end of the State. The application granted last Friday, over bitter opposition from the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific systems, permits the following construction: From Klamath Falls, Ore., its present southern terminus, the Great Northern will build south 88 miles to Bieber, in Lassen County. Cost of the work estimated at $3,000,000. From its main line in Keddie, in Plumas County, the Western Pacific will extend its system 112 miles north joining the Great Northern at Bieber. Cost of this trackage is estimated at $10,000,000. A third project in the program to be completed by the companies jointly, will provide a new outlet for rich timber country in Lassen, Modoc and Siskiyou counties. The two companies will acquire a logging road now operating in the 33 miles between Hambone, Siskiyou County, and a point five miles west of the proposed extension, they will construct a track across the five-mile gap and will convert the logging road into a common carrier. At Hambone the road to be converted meets the McCloud River Railroad, which connects with the Southern Pacific at Mt. Shasta, fifty miles west. One of the conditions imposed by the ICC in granting the application gives the Western Pacific trackage rights over the Great Northern extension from the joint terminal at Bieber to Lookout, thus giving the Western Pacific entry to McCloud River logging country. The Commission suggested that the Southern Pacific and Great Northern enter into agreement for joint use of S.P. tracks from Klamath Falls south to approximately the State line. This, the commission point out, would obviate some twenty-four miles of duplication and save the Great Northern approximately $800,000. The Great Northern's victory in a titanic battle which began in the days of Hill and Harriman and which contributed to panic of 1901, was greeted with acclaim by all of Northern California and most of the west. The California Railroad Commission, nine other Western States and numerous Chambers of Commerce supported the project before the ICC hearings.