Steam & Excursion > Steam Railroading Seemed Simpler Over 100 Years Ago As We See!

The yards in Turner, Oregon in 1915 look neat and clean with few buildings and other construction to clutter the scene.  At the center of the photo taken by H.L. Arey is Southern Pacific 2-8-0 #2590.  Like the rest of the scene she is neat and trim with few additions to her since she left the Baldwin factory a few years earlier.

There is a stillness in the air in this century-old setting that fills the air just like the escaping steam from #2590.

Martin



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/19 03:11 by LoggerHogger.

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That's a classic PNW railroad scene, Martin.

I have driven through Turner dozens of times in the 'Seventies and never realized that there was once a setup like that.

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

Why did Turner need a yard back then? There's not much there today.
Bill Pyper
Salem, OR
 

LoggerHogger wrote:

> The yards in Turner, Oregon in 1915 look neat and clean ...

I'm not sure two tracks constitutes a yard.

The photo was actually taken prior to November 1908.  That's when the  SP began using train indicators on locomotives and as the photo shows, there are no indicators on the engine.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/21 01:01 by johnsweetser.

According to Dunscomb, the 87 engines of class C-9 - nos. 2513 to 2599 - were built in 1906-1907.  That tends to narrow the time frame for the photo. 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/21 01:02 by johnsweetser.

I wish someone would mass-produce an HO model of a harriman boilered 2-8-0.
There were a ton of them on prototype railroads.
The SP version were terrific looking locomotives, particularly in their later years.


B

M-420 Wrote:
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> I wish someone would mass-produce an HO model of a
> harriman boilered 2-8-0.
> There were a ton of them on prototype railroads.
> The SP version were terrific looking locomotives,
> particularly in their later years.
>
>
> B

I believe that many years ago Roundhouse produced a crude metal model of a Harriman 2-8-0.  That said, I totally agree with your suggestion.  Not only were there many prototype locomotives, but it would be more compatible with smaller layouts than most of the non-USRA prototype and non-PRR models being offered these days.

Balboa Scale Models did a brass SP C-9 in the late sixty early seventy

I grew up just out of Turner; there was no appreciable traffic generated requiring a yard in the era shown other than local agriculture which included some grain and a considerable amount of seasonal fruit.  This picture is viewing east; Salem, Oregon is just a few miles down the tracks to the left and north.  To the right was a creamery, the building of which survived into the '70's and perhaps '80's.  The principal reason for the town was the availability of Mill Creek for power and water use.

Interestingly, the next station to the south, Marion, was supposed to have been here but the materials were mistakenly delivered down the track and the station built where delivered and named after the Revolutionary War general as was the county.  So instead another station was built and with the town, named after a prominent local resident.

Many years later when the trucking industry came into play a relatively large lumber mill, the Burkland Lumber Co., would be built in the area across the tracks and subsume the old depot.  It milled only the Western Hemlock not wanted by most other firms and generated quite a bit of traffic for the Southern Pacific of its own.

The Oregon Historical Society has photos of this same area for anyone interested, including the depot and some of the structures just out of view in this photo.