Yellow diesels and logging…
When I was little, Walthers released a H0 scale model of a Fairbanks Morse end cab switcher. It always appealed to me, with its stylish outline and cab verandah, but I couldn’t justify one on my Canadian H0 layout…
This afternoon Chris sent me a message…
I haven’t watched this yet but feel it looks like something we’d both be interested in, …and fmnut has never let me down yet!
I subscribe to FMnut’s channel, but having been out all day hadn’t dropped in and taken a look, and I’d it wasn’t for Chris’s nudge I’m not sure I would have, but I’m pleased I did. Great footage and those FM units… gosh, as striking in forestry yellow as I remember in their large railroad company colours… perhaps the N gauge project could look out for one… in the meantime, enjoy the video with a cup of your favourite drink. More soon…
Hi James
ReplyDeleteThat is very interesting piece of film of Weyerhaeuser’s Pe-Ell to South Bay operation. While I have not seen as much movie of the operation in the FM era, it is covered in detail in “Logging Railroads of Weyerhaeuser’s Vail McDonald Operation” published by Oso Publishing in 2005 of which I have a signed copy. It makes really interesting reading and covers railroad operations from 1924 until closure in 1992.
In my trip in 1989 I only managed to see some loaded log cars at Maytown waiting to go to the dump and in my 1999 holiday it was gone but John Henderson and I went to the shops at Pe-Ell which still looked as they did when the railroad was in. We also saw the log transfer which is at the start of the film. It was still intact and an impressive piece of kit built using trucks from one of the tower skidders. Weyerhaeuser had a similar machine at Mohawk transfer near Springfield Oregon and Simpson had a smaller unit on the truck dump at Shelton. John Henderson had visited Vail, the Columbia & Cowlitz ( CLC) at Longview and also rode the FM at White River and sent me some photos including one from a friend who had seen the earlier dumper at South Bay. In the film this had been replaced by the giant clam shells on the dump. Longview also had one of these huge grabs to unload cars at the mill before they went to dry sort log handling. The two FM’s at Longview on the CLC were later additions arriving in 1949 and 1955 after the Vail lokeys in 1948 and 49( hence the 48x and 49x road numbers). The CLC units went through a number of liveries including yellow and shades of blue, so when I saw a B&O unit for sale at an NMRA meet I had to get it. I removed all the lettering added H&C decals and renumbered to D-01 in keeping with D-x which Longview first numbered theirs. It is now the main shortline unit on my HO railroad but as it was delivered in my world in 1948 and is now 14 years old an EMD replacement is waiting.
I will send some photos to your e-mail address later and hope they add to the film
Best regards
Alan
Alan, thank you again for the information and photos, it adds a wealth of detail and helps paint a picture of operations now long gone!
DeleteGreat stuff! I'm another FM switcher fan though this is due to the Minitrix N scale model I had in the early 1980s. I find myself more drawn to the lineside scenes than those at the loading areas; in N you could make quite a nice atmospheric model based on a small oval with a hidden area out back for swapping trains etc. I think I'd be inclined to keep the visible area fairly minimal with just a grade crossing and a few odd buildings, other than that just grass and a few trees.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this video, James!
Simon.
Simon, I agree to some extent, and sketched similar… my drive to try N was a train in the landscape, but I want to model more than one scene too… it’s another conversation but search up my N scale posts in the Layout Design section (menu above) to see where I’d got to…
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