Sumpter Valley Aerial View In The Last Days

The Sumpter Valley Ry. would only operate for about another two months after this aerial photo was taken. The date on the shot is 9-26-61. On the left side of the shot, the smoke stack is at the California Pacific Utilities steam electric generating plant. All of the wood waste from the Oregon Lumber Co. South Baker finishing plant owned by the Edward Hines Lbr. Co. was used to generate electricity and heat the buildings in the complex. The large building with the clerestory to the right of the steam plant and a little closer to the bottom of the view is the machine shop of the Sumpter Valley Ry. The far side of the shop building had additional bays built on to serve as a car shop. The next building to the right is the truck shop, which was built in 1940 to house the two big articulated steam engines, 250 and 251. It was 3 stalls with one retained up to the end for parking the 30 ton diesel mechanical switch engine #101. Notice on the near side of the truck shop is Oregon Lumber Co. Shay #7. The roundhouse stood in the open area further to the right of the truck shop. Moving quite a bit further to the right, we can see the two story brick and stone office building that served the lumber company and the railroad. The single story stone portion was originally the company store. The track system is much simpler than back in the days of mainline operation. The track leading off to the right side of the image used to be the mainline to the Baker depot, but by this time is truncated not far outside the view. The track crossing the bridge leads to the interchange track with the Union Pacific. The bridge was one of the former mainline bridges up the Powder River. This bridge is still in place as a private road bridge today. The scan is from the SVRR Archive.




Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2022 06:40PM by J.B.Bane.