Western Railroad Discussion > PNWR action in the southern Willamette Valley

Enjoyed all the pictures of the street running trains in Harrisburg and Junction City, Oregon, so grabbed a couple of my own.  Yesterday the Albany Hauler came literally 3 minutes after the sun went away and it started to rain, but Friday I got a bit of sun at the right moment.

1. PNWR 2307 running through Junction City after switching the pulp mill near Halsey (now owned by Cascade Pacific) on its way back to Eugene.

2. Albany Hauler, pulled by GP39-2s 2307 and 2305, heading north past MP 116 next to the pulp mill.  Notice the patch of Santa Fe yellow on the front window panel on the engineer side of 2307.  Did not notice this Friday when they were running long hood forward.

Thanks for looking.

Tom
CBRL

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I cannot use the wood chips in my coal stoker,
but I wonder if I can buy carloads of lumber from
the mills to build my new house?

There is lots of trackage inside the mill in Halsey, and I've seen boxcars and tankers spotted in there, but it seems most of the traffic goes by intermodal truck to Portland.  Lots of domestic containers.  Apparently it didn't use to be that way, as boxcar shipments of finished product (paper towels, etc.) were much greater back in the day.  And having been inside that plant doing deliveries for OAK HARBOR FEIGHT LINES, let me tell you--that plant pumps out TONS of paper towels.  It's amazing seeing the GIANT rolls of paper pulp being  placed onto the machinery arms that feed the production lines, and the billions of paper towel rolls whizzing by on conveyor belts.

I wonder if the new owners of the mill had existing distribution channels that relied more on trucks and did not feel the rail connection would be as cost-effective.  Just a guess, and I do seem to remember a lot more rail activity just a few years ago there.

Tom
CBRL