TrainPages: CLC

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Sunday, July 5, 2015

Weyerhaeuser Rosters

I originally posted this information on my old website on March 26, 2009. I have since updated it.

This following link leads to a spreadsheet featuring rosters for the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company's railroads in Oregon and Washington, including the Weyerhaeuser Woods Railroad, the common-carrier Chehalis Western, Columbia & Cowlitz, & Oregon, California & Eastern and predecessor logging companies, with links to information and photos. Special thanks to John A. Taubeneck, who provided locomotive roster information that allows this to be a fairly complete roster.

Weyerhaeuser Rosters

Originally I had the rosters on a single webpage with links to pictures of some of the equipment. With the rosters now in spreadsheet form, I am including the links here.

Steam Locomotives

Cherry Valley Logging

Clemons Logging

Photos:
Clemons Logging 2-Truck Climax from University of Washington Digital Collection
Clemons Logging 2-Truck Shay (2?) from University of Washington Digital Collection
Clemons Logging 3-Truck Heisler #2 from University of Washington Digital Collection
Clemons Logging 3-Truck Climax #3 from University of Washington Digital Collection
Clemons Logging 3-Truck Climax #4 from University of Washington Digital Collection
Clemons Logging 3-Truck Climax from University of Washington Digital Collection
Clemons Logging 2-6-6-2T #6 from University of Washington Digital Collection
Clemons Logging 2-6-6-2T #6 from University of Washington Digital Collection

White River Lumber

Weyerhaeuser Woods Railroad (WTCX)

Photos:
WTCX Shay #3 on the Vail Line from Timber Times
WTCX Shay #3 on the Vail Line from the University of Washington Digital Collection
WTCX Baldwin 2-6-6-2T #6 c.1941 from University of Washington Digital Collection
WTCX 2-6-6-2 #6 from Washington State Steam Locomotives and Railroads
WTCX #6 from Fallen Flag Railroad Photos
WTCX #6 from rrpicturearchives.net
WTCX 2-6-2 #100 from Surviving Steam Locomotives of Oregon
WTCX 2-6-6-2T #108 from Washington State Steam Locomotives and Railroads
WTCX #108 from Fallen Flag Railroad Photos
WTCX Baldwin 2-6-6-2T #110 at Vail from University of Washington Digital Collection
WTCX Baldwin 2-6-6-2 #120 c.1938 from University of Washington Digital Collection

Diesel Locomotives

Weyerhaeuser Woods Railroad (WTCX)

Photos:
WTCX #1 at Enumclaw, 1960, from the University of Washington Digital Collection
WTCX #1 from Fallen Flag Railroad Photos
WTCX #1 from rrpicturearchives.net
WTCX #1 from rrpicturearchives.net
WTCX Baldwins on the Klamath Falls Line from railpictures.net
WTCX #101 from Rob Jacox's Western Rails
WTCX #102 from Rob Jacox's Western Rails
WTCX #303 from Fallen Flag Railroad Photos
WTCX #304 from Rob Jacox's Western Rails
WTCX #307 from railpictures.net
WTCX #307 from railpictures.net
WTCX #309 from Fallen Flag Railroad Photos
WTCX #309 from rrpicturearchives.net
WTCX #309 from railpictures.net
WTCX #310 from rrpicturearchives.net
WTCX #310 from Brian McCamish's website
WTCX #311 from Rob Jacox's Western Rails
WTCX SW1500s on Cowlitz River Bridge from railpictures.net
WTCX Train on the Rocky Point Trestle in Kelso, Washington from railpictures.net
WTCX Train on the Rocky Point Trestle in Kelso, Washington from railpictures.net
WTCX 70-Tonner on the Springfield Line from rrpicturearchives.net

Chehalis Western (CWWR) Chehalis

Photos:
CWWR #684 from railpictures.net
CWWR #776 from Fallen Flag Railroad Photos
CWWR #810 from railpictures.net
CWWR #817 & #818 from rrpicturearchives.net

Columbia & Cowlitz (CLC) Longview

Oregon, California & Eastern (OCE) Klamath Falls

Photos:
OC&E #7601 from railpictures.net
OC&E #7603 & #7604 from railpictures.net
OC&E #7604 from Fallen Flag Railroad Photos
OC&E #7604 & #7605 from railpictures.net
OC&E #7606 from northeast.railfan.net
OC&E #7908 from rrpicturearchives.net
OC&E #7910 from Fallen Flag Railroad Photos

Cabooses

Photos:
White River Lumber #001 from Washington State Cabooses
White River Lumber #001 from Washington State Cabooses
White River Lumber #001 from rrpicturearchives.net
White River Lumber #001 from rrpicturearchives.net
WTCX #1 from Brian McCamish's website
WTCX #2 from Brian McCamish's website
WTCX #2 from Brian McCamish's website
WTCX #4 on the Cowlitz River Bridge from railpictures.net
CLC #5 from rrpicturearchives.net
WTCX Caboose #7 from Fallen Flag Railroad Photos
WTCX Caboose #8 in Bicentennial Colors from Central California Rails
WTCX #602 from Washington State Cabooses
CMER Caboose from Washington State Cabooses
CWWR Wood Caboose from CarrTracks
CWWR #599 from CarrTracks
Chehalis Western #711 from Washington State Cabooses
WTCX #715 from Rob Jacox's Western Rails
OC&E #2001 from Larry Tuttle's Caboose Page 3
OC&E #2008 from rrpicutrearchives.net

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Still chuggin' at 75

This newspaper article by Bonnie J. Yocum was originally published in The Daily News on Saturday, October 14, 2000. I originally posted it on my website on June 1, 2005; I had very closely replicated the original layout of the article, but it didn’t translate into this new format.

THE DAILY NEWS
Saturday, October 14, 2000

COLUMBIA & COWLITZ
Still chuggin' at 75
Since 1925, Weyerhaeuser's little railway has been moving millions of tons of timber goods through area

Godfrids Ositis, 81, of Longview, says that in all his 28 years with C & C, he never missed one day of work. 'No accidents, nothing,' he said. Born in Latvia, Ositis immigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1950. He retired from the railroad in 1981 as a section foreman. Photo by Roger Werth / The Daily News

Riding the C & C:
'It gets in your blood'

By Bonnie J. Yocum
THE DAILY NEWS

8:31 a.m.

I'm in the front seat, high in one of two 2,000 horsepower locomotives pulling 32 cars of lumber, empty chip bins and rolls of newsprint.

"This is where I sit all day," says engineer Daryl Greer, 49, of Castle Rock. Two black consoles with red high-voltage warning stickers stand in front of him.

"As far as our job goes, I think it's the best," says conductor Gordon Jones, 47. "Because you're not standin' in some machine. You're moving all the time."

Weyerhaeuser Co.'s C & C Railway is celebrating its 75th anniversary, and still trundling strong. It moves more than a million tons of cargo every year, linking up with bigger trains that distribute local products across the continent. It's a little railroad with broad shoulders, moving more freight per mile than most rail lines in North America.

The C & C runs from the plant site up to Ocean Beach Highway and then to the northeast, snipping a corner of West Kelso before running over the Cowlitz River and terminating at Rocky Point, north of Kelso.

Long lured to trains, I rode the C & C Thursday to see what 75 years of railroading feels like.

This 1925 historical photo looking west toward Beacon Hill shows a wooden trestle and the beginnings of a steel bridge, still in use today, across the Cowlitz River.

8:35 a.m.

Gordon hops off the train with flares in his fist to flag the crossing at Industrial Way. Someone had crashed into the red striped warning gate early that morning and knocked it out of whack.

Yellow and blue earplugs shaped like lollipops poke out of our ears. The engine shudders every few minutes as we roll alongside the Mint Farm toward Ocean Beach Highway. Tssssssss.

Robed in smoky October mist, Mount Solo looks farther away than it is. Evergreens and poplars alternate on one side of the tracks. Blackberries bramble along the other.

Logging by railroad was in its prime in the 1930s.

8:42 a.m.

School buses, moms, dads wait as the arm goes down and we cross Ocean Beach, 30th Avenue, Pacific Way. Whoooo whoooo whoo whoooo. Two long, one short, one long at every crossing.

The C & C line is a ribbon of Longview's secrets. The dingy back sides of apartment buildings. Fenced backyards, patio umbrellas folded up from the wind and white plastic chairs tipped against a table to spill the rain.

A homeless man dressed in green and gray awakens from his cardboard bed and waves soberly, a half-salute, as we pass. Two empty shopping carts tilt in the dirt near him. Somber Catlin Cemetery slopes above the tracks.

8:55 a.m.

We turn north and skirt Columbia Heights in a stretch the trainmen call "Milco." It looks like someone has uprooted a couple colorful trees and slapped them against the tracks, leaving thick sprays of yellow and orange leaves.

Beavers from a nearby pond have been felling trees over the tracks recently. "There was one a week there for a while," Daryl says. Luckily this morning, the trainmen don't have to play lumberjack.

9:14 a.m.

At the Rocky Point switching yard, pigeons flutter over the tracks. The trainmen's lingo is foreign. "Oh-two and four coal off of three, or one, wherever they're at," Gordon calls into his radio.

Tied at their tails, C & C engines 701 and 702 chug back and forth, slotting the cars away until the paper, the lumber, the empties are all on different tracks. Crashes ripple from the engine on down the train, a domino effect of sound.

After a morning snack of Pepsi and corn dogs at Talley's Pacific Avenue Market across the street, the crew heads back to the tracks. They hook up 36 new cars, mostly fresh-smelling pine chips and coal bound for Longview.

9:41 a.m.

It doesn't seem fair that of all the people who pass this way, I'm the one who found a dollar out here on the tracks.

We're walking the train, checking brakes and counting cars before leaving Rocky Point. Gordon tells me about the transients, mostly Mexicans, who occasionally call out from the open boxcar doors. "Hey! Got a cigarette?" or "Which way is this train goin'?"

Graffiti on the cars, which travel all over North America, mark time and distance.

The Texas Madman 7-'90.

Ed Says: The Shadow Knows, 1841.

And my favorite, next to a drawing of a jumbled little train: Alone in the hard blackness, a line is coming in. Freight life continues. 7-8-98.

10:04 a.m.

We head back over the slatey Cowlitz, our thousands of pounds supported by a weathered brown trestle built in 1925 and still holding strong. My face against the glass, I watch white flotsam slipping down the river far below.

As we pass Westside Highway Produce, I look back to see the yellow caboose rolling over the bridge.

10:28 a.m.

As school kids at Northlake Baptist run waving alongside the train, Daryl lets me pull the black whistle handle and signal the crossing at Pacific Avenue.

Looong. Looong. Short. Looooong. I may have held it a little too long at the end.

"That one gave me goose bumps," Gordon laughed.

Tell me about it.

Workin' on the railroad

TOM BRACE, 76, of Longview.

19 years with C & C. Retired in 1984 as vice president and general manager of the railroad.

"I love (railroad work). I listen to the locomotive whistles every night, even if it's four o'clock in the morning. I listen to see if the engineers are blowing the whistles the way they're supposed to by law.

"It gets in your blood."

NOEL DAVIS, 63, of Kelso.

40 years total with Weyerhaeuser, 27 with C & C. Retired in 1995 as trainmaster.

"Anyone who works for a railroad is romantic. It's something you're always proud of.

"You gotta have a train, you gotta have a truck. You gotta have 'em both."

WAYNE KEEGEN, 65, of Longview.

38 years with C & C. Retired in 1994 as general manager of the railroad.

"It went by so fast."

"I really enjoyed working here. ... I really enjoy what I'm doing now, too. Nothing."

BYRON WILLIAMS, 67, of Castle Rock.

29 1/2 years with C & C. Retired in 1989 as train master and terminal superintendent.

Used to "cut" string of cars from the back of a 20 mph train to relieve the locomotives on tough uphill pulls: "You had to jump off the train in the dark."

GAIL CRANDALL, 57, of Castle Rock.

32 years with C & C. Retired in 1998 as accountant.

Remembers when the City of Longview tested sewers by filling them with smoke. "Well, they did that down in our business one day." Smoke rose out of a toilet and Crandall says all her co-workers thought it was a fire. "Well, those guys all took off and left me sitting there. They didn't even tell me."

- The Daily News

C & C railway: The hardest-working 6.5 miles you'll find

It takes a luggin' and keeps on chuggin' - even after 75 years. It's the Columbia & Cowlitz Railway's diamond jubilee, and C & C workers old and new gathered Friday to celebrate.

At the old air shack next to the tracks at the Weyerhaeuser Co. plant in Longview, dozens of workers, some wizened and retired, some green and limber, munched burgers and cake as Rail Services Manager Art Mahlum spoke about the grand old C & C.

The 6.5 mile route is one of the shortest of 16 "short lines" in Washington, Mahlum said. But the railroad carries more than a million tons of cargo every year, giving it one of the highest tonnages hauled per mile of any railroad in North America.

About 15,000 cars a year travel each direction on the C & C line, which runs from the Weyerhaeuser plant in Longview across the Cowlitz River over one of North America's largest wooden trestles to Rocky Point, north of Kelso. There, C & C rail workers drop off cars full of finished product for the big boys (Union Pacific and Burlington Northern-Santa Fe) to haul all over the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The C & C trains then return to Longview's industrial area with loads of raw materials, and the process starts over again. The train runs two times a day, six days a week.

The railway has 16 employees, three bright blue locomotives, 1,500 cars and one caboose.

Aside from Weyerhaeuser, the C & C serves NORPAC, Solvay Interox, Maverick Steel, Northwest Freight Car Shop, SMI Chemicals, and Pacific Lamination.

Source: Weyerhaeuser Co.

Related Links:
The Daily News
Weyerhaeuser

WTCX: Other Engines at the Mill

Continued from A Friendly Wave.

Here are a few pictures of some other locomotives I spotted at the mill on the way in before the trip and on the way out afterwards. The first two aren’t very good, as they were taken from a moving car, but they are here.

Weyerhaeuser #309

Weyerhaeuser #309, photographed on the way in.

Weyerhaeuser #309 is a GP7 built by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors in May 1953 as Reading Company #615. It was purchased by Weyerhaeuser in 1975. By 2001 it was reportedly for sale, but was still on the property in 2005 as shown here.

After Patriot Rail took over the Weyerhaeuser Woods Railroad on December 31, 2010, #309 was sold to Larry’s Truck & Electric of McDonald, Ohio in October 2011.

Columbia & Cowlitz #700, #701 & #702

Columbia & Cowlitz #701, photographed on the way in.

Columbia & Cowlitz #702, photographed on the way out.

Columbia & Cowlitz #700 is a GP20 built by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors in 1960 as Union Pacific #701. It was renumbered to #471 in December 1962. After being retired from Union Pacific in October 1977 it was sold to Precision National Corporation and rebuilt as a GP21 with a 2000-horsepower non-turbocharged 16-645 engine in place of its original 2000-horsepower turbocharged 16-567 engine. It was sold to South East Coal Co. (SECX) in March 1979 as #2004 for dedicated unit coal train service on the Louisville & Nashville in Kentucky. After SEC’s November 1990 bankruptcy it was sold to National Railway Equipment in March 1991. It was leased to the Arizona & California (ARZC) in May 1991 as #2004, and was used in national lease service in 1997 as NREX #2004. It was sold to Columbia & Cowlitz in 1998.

Columbia & Cowlitz #701 is a GP20 built by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors in 1960 as Union Pacific #727. It was renumbered to #497 in December 1962. After being retired from Union Pacific in October 1977 it was sold to Precision National Corporation and rebuilt as a GP21 with a 2000-horsepower non-turbocharged 16-645 engine in place of its original 2000-horsepower turbocharged 16-567 engine. It was sold to South East Coal Co. (SECX) in March 1979 as #2005 for dedicated unit coal train service on the Louisville & Nashville in Kentucky. After SEC’s November 1990 bankruptcy it was sold to National Railway Equipment in March 1991. It was leased to the Arizona & California (ARZC) in May 1991 as #2005, and was used in national lease service in 1997 as NREX #2005. It was sold to Columbia & Cowlitz in 1998.

Columbia & Cowlitz #702 was built by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors in 1953 as Nickel Plate Road GP7 #431. It later became Norfolk & Western #2431. It came to Weyerhaeuser in 1976 after being rebuilt as a GP7u by Morrison-Knudsen of Boise, Idaho, and was initially assigned to Vail, Washington, as #765. In 1981 it became Chehalis Western #765. It was transferred to the Columbia & Cowlitz as #701 in 1989, and was rebuilt in 1998 as #702 with a home-built low nose as shown here.

After Patriot Rail took over the Columbia & Cowlitz on December 31, 2010, all three of these locomotives were sold to Larry’s Truck & Electric of McDonald, Ohio in October 2011.

Columbia & Cowlitz Caboose #5

Continued from WTCX Caboose #1.

Caboose #5 actually belonged to Weyerhaeuser's other Longview railroad, Columbia & Cowlitz. It was in the middle of the group of cabooses. I believe it was originally built new for Weyerhaeuser as Chehalis Western #599 in 1982 and was transferred to the Columbia & Cowlitz after the Chehalis Western shut down in 1992.

The Columbia & Cowlitz was incorporated on April 9, 1925, and was built from 1926-1928. While the Weyerhaeuser Woods Railroad serves only Weyerhaeuser facilities, and generally does not interchange equipment with other railroads, the Columbia & Cowlitz interchanges with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad at Rocky Point, and serves customers such as NORPAC, Solvay Interox & Northwest Freight Car, in addition to Weyerhaeuser's Longview Mill. In addition to this caboose, Columbia & Cowlitz owns 3 locomotives and about 1500 freight cars. The Columbia & Cowlitz only operates 6.5 miles of track from Longview, far enough to access Rocky Point Yard. Technically, the boundary between the two is Ostrander. From there on, the line is solely operated by the Weyerhaeuser Woods Railroad (now Patriot Woods Railroad). In addition to having separate equipment, the two railroad operations also have separate groups of employees, even though they share much of the same track.

Continue to WTCX Caboose #4…