Western Railroad Discussion > Meet at the new Camas WA siding

Here are images of a meet at Camas, on 11/26, maybe the second day the siding was operational.
The 4730 heads in on a red-over-yellow aspect with a westbound manifest train. He is going 15-20 MPH as the siding is not completely surfaced and there may be other details to attend to.
Way down in the curve the east man passes the rear of the 4730.
The 7354 east brings another "no grainer" empty covered hopper train past the east switch.

This is at Camas, about 14 miles east of the end of double track near Vancouver, WA. It is very valuable to have the siding for meets between opposing trains but even more so to have a place to hold a train out of the terminal in case they are unable to take it in, or through the Vancouver terminal complex.

If anyone has BNSF mileposts, siding length, etc. please advise.

The BNSF removed the tracks that once delivered wood chips to the paper mill, but left the tracks that deliver chemicals used to make paper and cardboard. The wood chips come by truck and barge now.

These images are from the Camas Dallas St. overpass, just east of the old depot (now a signal headquarters?) and west of the Washougal River bridge.

(This post replaces the one I put up late last night but disappeared this morning.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/14 11:35 by railstiesballast.

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Interesting facility, not many paper mills left. Google satellite photo shows suggestions of all sorts of trackage that once was. Also shows long hopper cars at what I would have thought was the tank car spots. Curious what happened to the first post.

Get those durn industries out of the way and let them run some trains.

Based on what I see in Photo 2 it appears this siding is a work in progress. It obviously is in service but it looks like some surfacing work is still needed - a pretty good "kink" at the fouling point and the rest of the siding appears, at least from the photo, that alignment is needed. With the yellow flag on the siding I'm sure there is probably a 10 mph restriction for now on it.

railstiesballast Wrote:
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> If anyone has BNSF mileposts, siding length, etc.
> please advise.

The mileposts I was told were West Siding Switch at 21.9 and the East Siding Switch at 24.5. I haven't heard of the siding length, but given the mileposts, that makes the siding somewhere in the 12,000 foot range. Note the siding in on the south side of the main track, but at the west end to make the new siding fit, BNSF shifted the main track north from just west of the West Siding Switch to the next curve east. This means the siding is in the original position of the main track at the west end. Everything shifts back to "normal" at the first curve east of the West Switch.

The new siding length is 9073 feet. The west switch is at 22.64 and the east switch is at 24.48.

Scott Given

i asked in the earlier thread but will ask here does Amtrak use this line?

porkchop Wrote:
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> i asked in the earlier thread but will ask here
> does Amtrak use this line?


Yes sir, the Portland section of the Empire Builder.