Western Railroad Discussion > Log Ride

Wheeee!

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Those look like finished logs. Aka - poles.

I see a significant number of these regularly coming north into Ohio on the NS.

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Cool looking load.  Looks like Woodford in the Tehachapis.  Thanks for sharing.

Kent in CArmel Valley

Very similar loads are coming out of the Eugene Oregon area. Some look like traditional creosote but others are more lightly treated. Some on these smaller cars, some on 89ft cars, some on long cars with idler cars. A model builders delight.

They do have log loads running in the area as well, looks like they send those to a port on the Columbia river for export. Similar sized car, many or maybe all are from the old BC Rail logging fleet.

Standard utility pole lengths go from 25 to 100 feet with most in the 25 to 50 foot range.
The 25 footers might be a whole 9 inches in diameter, we used to call them toothpicks, while a 100 footer would be 2 feet in diameter at the base.
 

When logging off timber, a "Pole Tree" brings in way more money than one cut up for 8 or 16 foot building material.  They are well worth a long ride on a railcar.

Pole loads out of Philomath, Oregon have pretty well dried up over the last couple of weeks.  The sort yard on North 15th Street still has a few piles of them waiting for railcars...almost always the 89-foot TTX type.  When time allows, I'll post some more photos.
Earlier this year, several loads per week were being picked up by the Corvallis Local.  

Hopmere Hank
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/19 13:29 by HH.

DynamicBrake Wrote:
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> Cool looking load.  Looks like Woodford in the
> Tehachapis.  Thanks for sharing.
>
> Kent in CArmel Valley

Tehachapi's I'll buy, Woodford I won't.  Single track and Woodford is double, main and siding.  Not going to speculate
where it actually is, however.  

Did have some trouble finding the reporting marks, but finally did.  More and more, freight cars are private owner and not railroad.
Just saying.  

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

There is a company in Eugene I used to deliver HAZ-MAT liquids to that makes these poles for utility installations.  They have a giant "oven" that they slide these poles into, saturate them with the creosote liquid, and bake them.  The logging trucks that came and went were long, ununsual trucks.  Rain or shine, the mill men were out there, measuring and cutting these logs to exact lengths, then doing other prep work.  The regional railroad up there (Willamette and Pacific?) switched the plant almost every day, sometimes pulling 6 fully loaded cars at a time.

Think of every town hit by hurricanes or tonadoes or some disaster, and you can see why business for them is good.