J.B.Bane Wrote:
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> Sometimes in general the railroad crew
> was based out of a main camp, or even a small
> company town like Austin, Bates, White Pine or
> Curry, but the loggers lived at smaller more
> mobile camps in the woods. Due to the fact that
> horses were predominantly used for skidding logs
> in the early days and moving the horses back to a
> larger camp every night was not practical, small
> temp. camps next to the cutting area were likely
> the norm. Probably a lot of the loggers rode the
> last train out of the woods to a main camp leaving
> a hand of two to look after the horses.
> Other
> considerations would be whether the logging show
> was adjacent to a common carrier mainline like the
> Sumpter Valley or a logging companies private
> mainline like those operated by Oregon Lumber,
> Baker White Pine and Stoddard. That is if the
> logs were to be loaded on cars waiting on the
> mainline, the timing had to be coordinated with
> scheduled trains. Likely this loading was usually
> accomplished via a temp spur or siding that the
> empty log cars could be spotted on by the common
> carrier, to avoid tying up the mainline. However
> out on the logging companies mainlines this was
> probably not an issue at all at least for a
> smaller outfit.
> Another situation that seems to
> have been common along the SVRy were relatively
> short but sometimes up to several miles in length,
> logging spurs built away from the mainline that
> had a lumber company owned engine moving loads to
> the mainline. I have suspected that this may have
> been why SVRy seems to have used telephone
> exclusively as a telephone could be hung
> temporarily on a tree at one of these spurs so the
> logging engine crew could coordinate any movement
> they had to make on the SVRy mainline.
Thanks for the information, this is what I was thinking.
I mainly model later railroading, preferring 1929, before the depression. By this time, larger modern locos were commonplace, use of horses was limited, Cats were used for roadbed work and transport back to the main camp was more likely than 'camping' in the woods. Found some good information (don't remember where now, hope I saved it) about the camp car configuration; four men to a car, or sometimes one family; bunks on the ends, common area in the middle. Separate car for the kitchen and dining areas. Usually standard gauge width or wider- 10-14' wide as they didn't move much.
The use of telephones is interesting and of course would make sense, I never thought of it before mention of it in an earlier comment about 'Telephone Spring', between Alder and Larch on Google Maps, I assume it was so-called because of a telephone located nearby.... Any photos of SVRy telephone boxes?
I also assume the logging engines just used the mainline water tanks as needed, no need for their own unless the logging lines were long, such as in the lines from Austin and Prairie City.
I hope to come visit late summer or early fall and do some hiking but that is tentative at best, been kind of a rough year...
Russell Courtenay
Idaho, USA
