Western Railroad Discussion > In a Sea of Lumber

St Maries River RR SW1200 #501 had just pulled 5 loaded centerbeams from the Potlatch Mill a few minutes prior, and is now shoving 5 empty cars to a spot for loading. The mill employee on the forklift was protecting the crossing for the train crew and is now turning around to go load the cars. The switch crew spends it's day switching the mills on either side of town. They had just come from the mill on the east side of town prior to switching the Potlatch Mill for the second time that day. Photo from last Monday, July 26th, 2021.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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Great scene. Not many mills like this left in California.

Adam

A very cool scene!

Larry

Love to see that. 
May see a rebirth of some mills here in Cali this fall. We needa log off the burned areas.
Calling all lumberjacks ?

I'm sure SIERRA PACIFIC mills will be getting "emergency" logging contracts on alot of burned land.  The value of the timber depends on how badly it was burned.  Trees with slight burn will be prized.

Nice switching action photo especially with an unusual locomotive, especially these days.
Somebody needs to 'harvest' that power line.
t4p.

Cool shot! In my 23 years with MRL I musta seen 1000s of lumber loads coming out of the PNW. But a shot like this gives it all a whole different perspective. Thanks for the look...

Lance/199

Nice to see Milwaukee Road SW1200 612 still working on former Milwaukee Road rails all these years after the MILW abandoned their line to open the door for the creation of the St. Maries River RR.  She has been working as the STMA 501 for 41 years now which is 15 years longer than the MILW  had her in service after purchase from EMD.  

Thanks for sharing the photo with us here.  I'm sure the smell of freshly cut wood was very strong.

Thank you, Ted.  That photo is just cool as cool can be.

Bob Willer
Kansas City

Ted, great photo.

Thank you for taking the time to shoot the photo and post it.

Northridge Switcher

That is so good to see. Too far and few between scenes like this now days.
JB

coach Wrote:
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> I'm sure SIERRA PACIFIC mills will be getting
> "emergency" logging contracts on alot of burned
> land.  The value of the timber depends on how
> badly it was burned.  Trees with slight burn will
> be prized.

Sierra Pacific must be a big company now days, I think they must own most of the lumber mills in Western Washington now.

Always curious on the loading of centerbeams.   I assume you can't fully load one side of the car at a time as it could topple.

Do they have forklifts loading from both sides in a mill facility like this?  Or does the forklift operator need to keep crossing the tracks to the opposite side to even out the load?