Western Railroad Discussion > Astoria OR Grain Export?

Link....
http://www.crbizjournal.com/article_cd86c476-3ca1-11e1-b935-001871e3ce6c.html

The cost of upgrading the PNWR including a couple of old drawbridges might sink that project.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Good to hear that Jack is out there plugging for a rail shipper. This is the kind of effort
that will get the line from Wauna to Astoria reopened. I applaud the effort. Arlen

So can anyone tell us when Astoria lost their former elevator. In April 1975 I had the occasion to visit this facility in connection with my work for the AAR. While the sign on the elevator says operated by Kerr Grain, my very fuzzy memory keeps telling me that at the time of my visit it was actually being operated under lease by Bunge Corp. I recall the elevator superintendent telling us that they did minimal vessel loading perhaps only a couple of ships a year, I recall that some part of their business was "topping" off vessels that for whatever reason could not be loaded full in Portland or Vancouver (WA). The multi story brick structure immediately adjacent (attached?) to the elevator leads me to believe this may have been at one time a flour mill. I still recall the place was switched by a BN RS11 in new green paint.
George
old railroad grain guy

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Does the state of Oregon own the Astoria line and the PNWR lease it from the state? Should things take off there I could see BNSF maybe having a hand in it. Maybe. Relaying the A-line with second hand ribbon rail would be worth it in the end if they could get enought people on board to fund it. Would be a good project for connect Oregon dollars. A lot of maybes but either way it would be great for Astoria.

mns019 Wrote:
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> So can anyone tell us when Astoria lost their
> former elevator. In April 1975 I had the occasion
> to visit this facility in connection with my work
> for the AAR. While the sign on the elevator says
> operated by Kerr Grain, my very fuzzy memory keeps
> telling me that at the time of my visit it was
> actually being operated under lease by Bunge Corp.
> I recall the elevator superintendent telling us
> that they did minimal vessel loading perhaps only
> a couple of ships a year, I recall that some part
> of their business was "topping" off vessels that
> for whatever reason could not be loaded full in
> Portland or Vancouver (WA). The multi story brick
> structure immediately adjacent (attached?) to the
> elevator leads me to believe this may have been at
> one time a flour mill. I still recall the place
> was switched by a BN RS11 in new green paint.
> George
> old railroad grain guy


Well, George, as another "old railroad grain guy" (who pulled coopered 40' boxes over 56 lb. rail out of Eleanor, Washington rocking-and-rolling at 5 - 10 MPH hoping we'd stay on top of the rail) I can't nail down a date for the last grain trains into Astoria but I know they still ran occasionally in the '70s. The timeslip pictured here is one day of a three-day holddown I caught off of the Portland extra board just before Christmas 1973. The extra night switch job to handle the inbound grain was called for 8 PM so that it could use the daylight Astoria Road Switcher's engine and usually worked a nightly 12-hour shift until the entire train was unloaded. You'll notice on my timeslip that the engine was the BN 4196 (ex-NP 916), one of the RS-lls which you mentioned. I caught the job again in March 1974.

One night, when I was switching the elevator, as the engine was adjacent to a hotel located between the main line and the Columbia River a drunk walked out of the hotel's bar and started throwing rocks at the cab of the engine as he complained about the noise it was producing. My conductor was not far away (the brakeman was out on the dock end of the cut of cars) so he walked over to talk to the drunk but wasn't initially successful in getting the rock throwing stopped. After a bit the rocks stopped coming and I wondered what my conductor said that caused the change. He was a tall, big bruiser of a guy who wouldn't have any trouble handling the drunk but he never laid a hand on him. I learned later that he said to the drunk (who was considerably smaller than him) "If you think I'm big, just wait 'till I sic my field man (brakeman) on you". The funny part was that our brakeman was a short, slightly-built man who weighed probably half as much as our conductor. He was certainly glad that the drunk didn't call the conductor's bluff!

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