With brake shoe haze trailing, a Chehalis Western log train has just descended the Tacoma Gulch with a maximum grade exceeding 3.0%. Due to current market conditions these Weyerhaeuser logs will ... (more)

Union Pacific had a compact yard and engine terminal in Tacoma where they could base some switching and transfer moves. Seen here on a weekend in November 1977, are a typical assortment of UP powe... (more)

Columbia & Cowlitz's daily landfill train, led by SW-1500 #308, drifts downhill through Ostrander. Two months latter the Weyerhaeuser switchers, some of which had been on the property since the ea... (more)

Headed back to the Vail reload for another load of Weyerhaeuser logs for export a Chehalis Western train of empty log bunks heads south near Fredrickson, WA over former Milwaukee Road trackage.

The caboose of BNSF's fire fighting train.

Grist for the mill. Simpson engineer Sterling takes a few moments to give a his engine a walk-around while logs are taken off the train to be stacked and sorted by a pair of loader machines. (pe... (more)

Simpson power waits while the loaders take log bundles off the train to cold deck. Lots of logs up at the dry sort yard right now, and more coming, means job security. (permission to be on prope... (more)

Down at the loading dock it's nearly departure time. After the log train clears the switch Dave will align it for the 1202 which will then move up and tack onto the rear. (permission to be on pr... (more)

IVT mechanic Charlie Cerar makes literal use of the phase "measuring stick" to determine how full the 18-gallon gas tank is on car No. 519's power cart. Since Issaquah does not have an overhead t... (more)

At "Knights" the log job is returning empties after the morning run up to Mill 5.

At the crossing with a logging road known as Smith Lane, the grade levels off and the lead engine notches down after the 2.2% ascent of the Sand Cut. Two pushers are on the rear, but one will cut... (more)

Mill 5 bound, the 1201 is blasting up the hill above Goldsborough Creek near the Carman road. Many of the logs were barnacle-coated from being in the seawater for a while.

Nearly at the end of a run up the hill with a train of logs for the sort yard and Mill 5. MT Rainier is in the picture today, too.

Columbia & Cowlitz #308 leads an empty trash train downhill from Headquarters. In just two months the classic Weyerhaeuser switchers would be replaced by Geeps in the generic Patriot Rail scheme.

It's only July but the residents of this trackside home already have their Christmas lights hanging in preparation for the holiday season. Meanwhile a Simpson Timber Railroad work train makes a f... (more)