Re: Oregon Lumber Company

Based on the first photo in line of Bates, it seems like a good bet that a track did indeed run behind the mill and hill which would have connected between the SVRy mainline going up Bridge Crk. and the OLC middle fork line. The flat cars shown are on that track. SVRy mainline to the right, middle fork to the left of the photo.
The 2nd photo is the only shot I have run into that shows the engine shop. The middle fork mainline would be running along side this building headed down the river to the left. The mill building shown in the first photo would be to the right of this shot and I think the track with the lumber load is coming from behind the mill and would be the one the empty flat cars are on in the first shot.
The 3rd shot would be to the N.E. showing where the OLC and SVRy track diverges, with the water tank sitting in between. Austin would be a mile or so to the left of the photo, the company hotel, lower log pond and mill to the right.
The last is taken from across the tracks from the company hotel. The track is the SVRy mainline, with a siding that ran in front of the hotel and it looks like maybe an additional siding or spur that one can see an engine sitting on. So these 4 photos have basically taken the reader around in a clockwise circle of views.
On two other points, Casey Carlson emailed me to say that Mr. Endicott mentioned earlier left the OLC probably early in the year 1941 as he was working as engineer for another lumber company during that year. This suggests that woods railroad logging had finished by early 1941, but this doesn't eliminate the likely hood that truck to rail reload my have gone on for several more years, and like Jim Grigsby said maybe right up till abandonment. A dated photo in the mid 40's with the #7 in service would help to back this up. Casey also mentioned that OLC #7 was derailed on a logging spur, so it did venture off of the mainline, but this could have been on a scrap train pulling rail.

This map shows the relation of the SVRy and OLC to the East of Bates. There was also a siding between Austin and Bates and there is mention in company material of extending it and calling it the interchange track in the late 1930's. This supports the idea of OLC doing the switching and SVRy picking up the made up trains between Austin and Bates, and leaving off the empties. With the track no longer going beyond Bates to Prairie, I suppose they could have left the empties on the main or siding and picked up the loads on the other track. What was prototypical with most things depends on time frame and the photo posted earlier of one of the big engines at Bates may have captured an exception to the norm which is why someone bothered to take a photo.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2014 12:29PM by J.B.Bane.