Western Railroad Discussion > Visit to St Maries River

Back in September, I made my first visit to the St Maries River Railroad. I visited on a Wednesday and they left right about Noon for the UP interchange at Plummer.
1. The MILW caboose on display in town pays tribute to the MILW heritage of the STMA lines.
2 & 3. STMA power at the enginehouse, and firing up.
 

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4. Plummer Turn power at the depot.
5. The Plummer Turn rolls out of St MAries along the St Joe river bottomlands.
6. Easing their 19 car train out onto the wooden trestle at Benewah Lake.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/18 09:26 by DJ-12.

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7. A wide shot as the train crosses the mirror still lake.
8. Now climbing out of the valley, the train crosses Pee Dee Trestle.
9. Emerging from the woods as the train arrives at Plummer.

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10. Arrival of the turn coincided with the UP's own Plummer Turn. They made several quick moves to pick up the STMA's delivery and left town while the STMA returned light to St Maries.
11& 12. The UP Plummer turn had an interesting ex SSW Geep leading as they left Plummer and rolled into Worley.

Totally worth a day to catch a neat operation like this!

Thanks for looking!

 

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Nice pics!!  I like Pic 7!!

The display caboose and switch stand have absolutely 0% Milwaukee heritage save for the herald.

Very productive visit.  You got some great sunny shots.

Interesting post, always like those smaller than regional but well run operations.

The tall copula on the display caboose is clearly SP&S or NP heritage, it's a signature design, built exclusively for those two RR's.

The MILW cupola cabooses were riveted construction and a few were used out west. They were in the 01600 series and commonly found in work train service. I think the St Maries River started out with a couple of MILW ribside cabooses but were cut up in the great log flat massacre of some years ago.

Superb set of photos! Looks like a very fun and productive day.

Nice to see a short line that hasn't been gobbled up by G&W and their ilk. And still has its first generation power! Some interesting heavyweight passenger cars in that one shot . . . m of w, or do they run a tourist train?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/18 11:00 by CPR_4000.

fbe Wrote:
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> The MILW cupola cabooses were riveted construction
> and a few were used out west. They were in the
> 01600 series and commonly found in work train
> service. I think the St Maries River started out
> with a couple of MILW ribside cabooses but were
> cut up in the great log flat massacre of some
> years ago.

Thanks for the note on the caboose, I wasn't around when the Milwaukee was, so its good to learn what was real and what is a "stand in". Perhaps a MILW cab wasn't available at the time? In any case, points on their part for the effort.

Great series - thanks for sharing.

BB

All 5 diesels are former MILW power and were early rebuilds from Morrison Knudsen at Boise, ID.

Really a very nice photo series with concise narratives.
Thanks very much for your posting.
ALLEN

Thanks for hsaring these great photos!! I was curious, it seems the railroad has passenger cars, do they run a tourist train?

Great pictures, locations, and write-up!  Thanks for sharing.
GK

Nice series of photos. Love the reflection shot across the lake. 

To answer the questions about those passenger cars, they are five of the former Shasta Sunset Dinner Train cars, all moved from the McCloud Railway to St. Maries throughout 2012.  My understanding of the situation is that Potlatch gave the Williams Group (Midwest Pacific Rail Net & Logistics) some finite amount of time to redevelop traffic on the line going south from St. Maries before it would revert to Potlatch for them to scrap.  Establishing a dinner train with the former McCloud equipment seemed to be the best idea they came up with, but nothing happened after they got the cars moved north, and I've heard they have essentially dropped all those plans.  If you look in the right corners of the Midwest Pacific website you'll find references to a "St Maries Tours", which doesn't necessarily mean anything.  

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV 

#7 screams retro! Next stop, Camp Crystal Lake. On the real though, beautiful photo. Great job on all of them.