Steam & Excursion > A Northwest Railroad Icon Finally Shuts Down For All Time!

News of the end of this famous Northwest logging railroad came quietly in the first of this month of March 2015.  Yes, the final whistle has blown on what once was one of the premier logging railroads in the U.S..

I am referring to the Weyerhaeuser Timber logging railroad out of Longview, Washington.  First started in 1928, this operation grew to be one of the largest and most prolific of all logging railroads in the Country.

Everything about this line was BIG!  It sported the largest wooden trestle in the world with the Baird Creek trestle.  It also operated a fleet of Baldwin logging Mallets including the 2 largest steam locomotives ever built for logging, the #s 200 and 201.  Also found on the fleet of mallets was a group of the only simple expansion tank Mallets ever built for U.S. logging railroads.  #106 of that series is shown here in the bottom photo.

Weyerhaeuser finally sold off the line several years ago to Patriot Rail who has operated the line up until March 9, of this year when they shut the railroad for good.  A good article on the closure is found here:

http://tdn.com/news/local/it-s-the-end-of-the-line-for-weyerhaeuser-woods/article_df243936-d1d4-11e4-b995-4b17113ec02a.html

With the Longview line closed for good and Simpson having mothballed it's Shelton railroad, there are simply no logging railroads operating in the West any longer.  Very sad indeed.


Martin



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/15 03:59 by LoggerHogger.

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OK,  Without trying to start a rant, the article says that the pipeline cost $10 MILLION.  It further states that "it is expected to save thousands of dollars per year".  That simply is amazing that someone would buy into that, or worse yet put that into print as a justification for spending $10 MILLION taxpayer dollars.   That makes me think that it saves less than $100,000 per year or they would have said "hundreds of thousands" rather than just "thousands".   At $100,000 per year the project is a 100 year payout if it financed solely out of taxpayer dollars, not bonds.   By the time 100 years is past, the whole pipeline will have had to be replaced at least once (the pipe at any way).   Please explain to me how this is efficient, or efficient use of taxpayer dollars, except for the fact that some one's construction company needed the work and it provided a some jobs while the pipeline was built, at the expense of losing more jobs on the railroad.

I know that this forum is not about this sort of thing but I just had to ask.

Am I missing something somewhere?    That is what is says, isn't it?

Shaking my head.......

It is a sad day. I wish I would have visited the operation more.

Tony,

I was glad I got down there a number of times back in the 1970's when I was living in Washington.  The engine shops at Headquarters and the rest of Headquarters Camp was really something to see.

Lots of great memories there.

Martin

Another era passes.

What is it that we see in photo #2? The large boom like structure has me baffled. Did a quick Google on 'Lidgerwood loader' and found this article about a 'Lidgerwood Tower skidder', which I had no clue existed. Is this kinda what is shown in #2?

http://www.rootsofmotivepower.com/sites/default/files/2012-December-Vol-30-No3-web.pdf

Tried to chase the Weyerhaeuser Line, stopped at the no trespassing no visitors sign at Headquarters, always curious what was back there.

I'll have to check the skidder out, that's one heck of a beast, even snorts steam.

Ok what happens to the line? Becomes a trail, or could a tourist line work here?

Posted from iPhone

TCnR Wrote:
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> What is it that we see in photo #2? The large boom
> like structure has me baffled. Did a quick Google
> on 'Lidgerwood loader' and found this article
> about a 'Lidgerwood Tower skidder', which I had no
> clue existed. Is this kinda what is shown in #2?
>
> http://www.rootsofmotivepower.com/sites/default/fi
> les/2012-December-Vol-30-No3-web.pdf
>
> Tried to chase the Weyerhaeuser Line, stopped at
> the no trespassing no visitors sign at
> Headquarters, always curious what was back there.
>
> I'll have to check the skidder out, that's one
> heck of a beast, even snorts steam.

I believe they have a skidder at MRSR, but I don't know what shape it is in.

I'm no expert beyond having read a few articles on these beasts, but what I believe you are seeing in that photo is a donkey on the flatcar right behind the engine, a spacer flat with a few logs on it, and a skidder with a self-erecting tower on the 3rd car. The tower is folded over, so the rig is being transported to a new harvest area, at a guess.

The closest things in current existence to a skidder setup would be perhaps a zip line or a ski chair lift. The skidder would sit just off the track (or sometimes straddling the track above flatcar height), with the tree erected. The tree (which on older machines was a real tree) would have stay lines from the top to hold it up. There would also be other 'far end" trees set up out in the woods, and a tight line run from the top of the main tree out to the top of each of these trees. There was also a pulley on the far tree, and a loop line from a winch on the skidder to the top of the main tree, out to the far tree, and back to the main tree and back to the winch. This line had a hook or loop on it to which a snatch line to a log could be attached. This line was also supported from the tight line by more pulleys.

The skidder operator would run the line out to where there was a tree to be brought in, then put slack in the line. Someone would grab the loop in the line and drag it over to the end of the log and attach the snatch line. Then the operator would tighten up the line a little and start dragging the log back to the skidder. If the log wasn't directly under the tight line, the operator could control the drag path a little by tightening the line to pull the log closer to the center of the drag path. Once the log was at the skidder, more winches on the tree(s) would be used to shift it onto a flatcar or log cars. Then the loop ran back out to drag in another log.

Thanks for the reply. There's a small lidgerwood loader at the museum near Chiloquin, that's how I recognized the loader part. Had not seen the tower combination before. What a beast.