Steam & Excursion > In The Steam Era Not All Experiments Turned Out To Be Successful!

In the Pacific Northwest, many of the logging railroads of the steam era were forced to shut down each winter due to heavy snow in the timber areas they were cutting in.  While the deep snows would prove to be a challenge to the logging railroads themselves, the common thinking was it was too hard for the felling, bucking and yarding crews to work in the deep snows.  For this reason, many of the forests in the Pacific Northwest sat silent through the winter months.

In 1922, with a rising lumber market, and the company having invested heavily in it's Westwood, California operation, the Red River Lumber Co. decided to experiment with a full winter operation.  RRL Logging Superintendent Fletcher Walker came up with the idea to try and reduce the enormous debt that the company had taken on with the move to Westwood from Minnesota and the sizable operation established in their Northern California holdings.

This photo of RRL 2-8-0 #101 in the deep snows out of Westwood during the 1922-1923 winter shows just what the RRL logging crews were up against.  While these men were glad to have work during the winter months and not have to be laid off or take other jobs around the mill, they were faced with a whole new set of challenges with logging  the deep winter snows.

Needless to say, the company soon found that the increased costs incurred in battling winter snow to harvest the same logs that they could cut during summer months, did not justify the additional volume harvested.  In 1924, after only 2 winter seasons, the company abandoned this experiment and returned to spring-to-fall cutting with a shut-dwon during the winter.

Martin



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/19 04:31 by LoggerHogger.

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I would bet that #101 never saw anything like that when it operated on the Tonopah and Goldfield! 

Thanks again, for a unique photo, Martin!
 

Definitely back before "work-at-home."    Very sobering to see how tough working conditions were for so many during that era.

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

But at the same time, though the RR was shut down, weren't trees fallen in the winter to be hauled out in the spring?

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com