Nostalgia & History > Does Anyone Remember Logging Railways in Northwest?

This post could have gone under the "Steam Railroading" section so it was a toss of the coin. Regretfully, many of us missed the many logging railroads that dotted the Pacific Northwest from Northern California, Oregon, Washington and into British Columbia. At one time Crown Zellerbach had a fairly large operation in Washington State..then in the mid 60's the company became the target of a hostile takeover. After passing through various corporate breakups the pulp and lumber assets became part of Georgia Pacific.

For now, let's take a look at what logging was like in the mid 50's...

Crown Zellerbach #12 (one of a fleet of massive saddle tank engines that plied the forests of the Northwest.

#12 at work...Not fancy mainline stuff, just doing its job bringing logs down the hill.

Loading logs from truck to train. To the right #12 looks on... Check out the Kenworth truck.. To this day, the KW's retain their distinct lines...The photo demonstrates why many loggers lost fingers, hands and sometimes more..This was dangerous work..

(Images courtesy of the Pacific Northwest Rail Archive.)

Because of companies like Crown Zellerbach, my relatives the Sasquatch had to move to higher mountains..they did not have the benefit of glaciers & caves.

Yukon Yeti



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/18 08:10 by YukonYeti.

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I was in the printing business from 1962 to 2007. I bought a lot of paper from Crown Zellerbach in the early days. They always had a good product. Georgia Pacific gobbled-up a lot of paper companies and may possibly be the largest in the world by now. I'm sorry that your family was displaced. They may be able to return to the old homestead now since most of the wood chip used to make paper these days comes from Canada or Chile.
Bill Pyper
Salem, Oregon

Very cool photos. "Reloads", like in photo 3 are the other way around tho, from truck to train. The trucks bring the logs down from remote "landings" in the hills to various reloads and transfer the logs from truck to train, then the train takes the logs to the mill saving many truck trips over a longer distance. Keeps them pesky trucks out of downtown Shelton for instance...

Cheers, Dave

Thanks for posting the photos...much appreciated.

And Dave, you probably meant to say "kept" in relation to the trucks in Shelton, as the Simpson Railroad has been no more for a while now...

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

True pieces of history.
I visited Crown Zellerbach in British Columbia in 1974, so I can relate your photos. Thanks for sharing these.
Bob