Western Railroad Discussion > new customer in Lakeview, OR

The most recent (10/24) Google Earth photo shows a three-track spur under construction in Lakeview, though it does not yet appear to be attached to the "mainline." Does anyone know what this spur will be for?
- Loleta Fernbridge



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/24 13:24 by loleta.

Eco Materials, it's a company that will be making a concrete additive from Perlite dust. Estimated to be shipping out 10-20 cars per week. Outbound shipments of Perlite is already a principal outbound commodity on the railroad from the Imery's plant on the north end of the railroad.

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Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Love it!

Glad to see someone is getting new business. 
The UP (SP) coast line here in CA is just lettered with abandoned or long unsused industry sidings, as are LA and SFO.

It looks like the new tracks will be connected to the "mainline" with a wye.

Google satellite shows many active tracks and lots of cars in Lakeview.  Seems like a lot more activity than a once a week run down to Alturas can cover.

Stan Praisewater



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/24 19:07 by sagehen.

Yup Stan, and you go to Lakeview and it feels a lot busier on the railroad than once a week.
PSR there sir, run the train when you feel you have a) enough cars to make it worthwhile
and b) the UP is in Alturas. I've been through a couple times when they were switching the
local spots and not going South. Great to see some new business.

Out 

The refinery should be coming online in '26 hopefully. We'll be very busy then.

Poking around on Google Earth, seems to me to be a pretty railroad heavy town, especially for not being on a mainline. 

What's the traffic like? I see on here just one local a week? I count maybe 8 or 9 customers but could be wrong

In 1940 Lakeview was home to seven forest product plants, a combination of sawmills and moulding/millwork facilities.  Other sources of traffic included livestock and a uranium mill.  The timber industry thrived there due to a "working circle" the U.S. Forest Service established that stipulated logs coming off the government lands in the general area had to be milled within a certain radius of Lakeview of Paisley, a town in northern Lake County.  That program effectively insulated the Lake County timber operators from having to compete for logs with the large mills in Klamath Falls, Bend, and Redmond.  Today there are two rail shippers left in Lakeview, the Collins Pine Company's Fremont sawmill which has survived almost entirely due to the 112,000 acres of private timberlands the company owns in the region, and the Imerys Performance Minerals perlite mine up near Paisley.  The perlite mine since it opened under a prior ownership has been loading covered hoppers at the old uranium plant at the far northern end of town, the mine will also be the raw material source for the new plant discussed here when it opens.  Goose Lake uses quite a few of the other spurs to the now inactive shippers around town to store cars waiting to be spotted at one or both of the active shippers, which can give the appearance of their being more business on the railroad than actually exists.  

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV