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Logging Railroads of the Pacific Northwest In Color Vol 1 by Gary Durr w/ DJ
Logging Railroads of the Pacific Northwest In Color Vol 1 by Gary Durr
Hard Cover w/DJ
128 pages
Copyright 2016
CONTENTS
Introduction3
Weyerhaeuser Timber Company Weyerhaeuser Woods Railroad Longview Branch4
Klickitat Logging & Lumber Company32
Simpson Timber Company Simpson Railroad42
Rayonier Incorporated Clallam Branch70
Rayonier Incorporated Grays Harbor Branch82
Weyerhaeuser Timber Company Skookumchuck Railroad98
Weyerhaeuser Timber Company Chehalis Western Railroad104
Weyerhaeuser Timber Company Curtis Milburn and Eastern Railway112.
Weyerhaeuser Timber Company "New" Chehalis Western Railroad116
Miscellaneous Logging Lines126
INTRODUCTION
The Pacific Northwest is a region comprised of Washington and Oregon in the United States and the southern parts of British Columbia, Canada. It borders the Pacific Ocean to its west and many great mountain ranges such as the Cascades, Olympics, Coastal, Blue, and Rocky Mountains to its east. In this volume, we'll be examining the logging railroads of one area in particular: Washington State.
With the Western Expansion of the United States in the 1800s, timber and lumber were in high demand. The coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest seemed boundless and many attempted their fortunes at logging. Steam logging appeared in the late 1800s, increasing the amount of timber that could be harvested and processed at mills. With the advent of the geared steam locomotive, production soared. Larger mills were built, and demand skyrocketed. Increased harvesting meant cutting timber farther away from the mills, which meant longer railroad travel. This expansion created logging empires: Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Crown Willamette, Poison Logging, Schaefer Brothers Logging, Bloedell-Donovan, Ozzett Timber Company, Simpson Logging, National Lumber, Kosmos Timber, Long-Bell Lumber, Ostrander Timber Company, White River Timber, and Western Pine Lumber Company were a few of the many.
While some logging companies had a modest amount of railroad right-of-way, perhaps 10-30 miles of track, some of the larger and better-known companies had nearly 150-200 miles to work. In the mid-1940s, Weyerhaeuser Timber Company owned and operated an amazing 699 miles of track in Washington State alone. This was nearly as much track as the Spokane Portland and Seattle Railway had as a class one common carrier main line railroad.
Mergers and buyouts changed the face of railroad logging empires in Washington by the late 1940s. Newcomers like Rayonier created an empire in the North West Olympic peninsula, while names like Long-Bell, Poison, and Schaefer Brothers faded away. Practices also changed. Log trucks could move loads cheaper and more efficiently from the logging sides to reload points on the mail rail lines. No longer were the steep and dangerous spur lines needed to access the log decks on the mountain sides, trucks could now transport them to reloads, truck-to-rail transfers, and sort yards.
Over the years, the logging railroads disappeared, leaving only a few by the 1980s. Efficiencies in harvesting, transporting, and milling, as well as economic changes, made them liabilities. By the new millennium, there was only one true logging railroad left in the continental United States, and as of this writing, it too has faded into history.
Since this volume alone could not possibly cover all the logging railroads in Washington, I have instead tried to represent its "essence" as best as I could.
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