Re: NNG: Turning Steam Locomotives on wyes

Mention of the wyes at LaGrande and Telocaset made me realize I had scans of a few old maps that might relate. In the first map attached of LaGrande circa 19teens, the spur coming off off of the mainline over to the left side of the map leads out N. to the George Palmer Lumber Co. mill. This spur is at nearly a 45 deg. angle to the mainline. Note that to the right side of the map is a wye that connects to a line also heading northerly. This is the OWR&N Joseph Branch. The Palmer mill has been gone for many decades, but at some point, a west leg was added making the connection to the main a wye and a bit of the spur retained as a tail track. Based on Google earth, they were able to build the west leg without it being too tight. The old wye with the Joseph branch at some point had it's east leg removed. LaGrande is pretty interesting in Google Earth in that one can see the old 30+ stall roundhouse location. I have also included a historic image of Telocaset and a current Google Earth Shot. Nothing here really to answer the original question, but I thought a little historical perspective on the wyes might be interesting. To tie this remotely to NG, near Telocaset, a connection was made to the OWRN by the Big Creek and Telocaset RR. which was built by the Grande Ronde Lumber Co. to serve their mill at Pondosa. This railroad though std. ga., and the mill were built by members of the Stoddard family who did operate NG logging lines connected to SVRy. Our WHEccles Heisler #3 has the bell off of B.C&T #5.






Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2016 09:53PM by J.B.Bane.