OPPOSITE: The Camas Prairie Grangeville Local cautiously crosses the massive Lawyer’s Creek Viaduct east of Craigmont on June 7, 1996. TOP: The steel water tank at the East Lewiston engine facility looms over Burlington Northern and Union Pacific four-axle power leased to the Camas Prairie on June 22, 1996. ABOVE: Situated along the Clearwater River, 42 miles east of Lewiston, the Orofino depot stands quiet several hours before the arrival of the log train from Jaype. RIGHT: The Lewiston switcher rolls into its namesake town.
I rescheduled my trip for Thursday, June 6, and Friday, June 7. With my lesson learned, the night before the trip I put away all the magazines and my copy of Hal Riegger’s The Camas Prairie: Idaho’s Railroad on Stilts. It worked — with a solid night’s sleep I was on my way well before sunrise. The 132-mile trip on lonely, twisting two-lane roads seemed to last forever and filled me with anticipation.
Finally, Lewiston came into view with the rising sun centered in my face. I quickly checked in at the East Lewis- ton engine facility to find the iconic rotary snowplow parked for the summer with Union Pacific GP38-2 2030, part of an engine class affectionately known regionally as “Northwest Geeps,” along with Burlington Northern GP39M 2891 and GP40M 3503.
A few minutes after 11:00 a.m., BN 428, an SW1000 built in January 1971,
came rolling out of the Potlatch Forests Inc., mill at East Lewiston with a former Burlington caboose in tow. Things were starting to look good! As much as I wanted to stay with the mill switcher, I forced myself to break off and head for Orofino, located 43 miles to the east, for a much bigger fish to catch. First on the list was Bridge 3 on the Headquar- ters Branch, also known as Konkolville trestle. After a quick shot of the Orofino depot, I rounded the bend just east of town and the massive trestle came into view. I could hardly believe my eyes — standing 67 feet tall and 656 feet long, the trestle made me think of those huge roller coaster rides at big theme parks. I had never seen anything like it before. It seemed unnatural for a huge wooden trestle like that to be in service in 1996, but there it was. I knew the Lewis- ton-bound logger was heading my way
but I was too scared to miss out seeing it crossing Konkolville trestle, so I waited, and waited, and waited for it. My watch read 5:05 p.m. when I heard a rumbling behind the trees. This was it! Easing down the 2.2 percent grade from Jaype was UP 2378, a former Missouri-Kansas-Texas GP39-2 and UP GP38-2s 2061 and 2060, followed by 38 log cars and caboose BN 12571. The train passed through Orofino 15 minutes later and the chase back to Lewiston was on. While Camas Prairie’s 1st Subdivision between Orofino and Lewiston followed the Clearwater River on the north side, U.S. Route 12 unfortunately followed on the south side. A road bridge at Lenore, however, gave access for another good runby, and the train passed by an hour after leaving Orofino. I gave myself plenty of time to set up at Spalding where the wye and junction with the famed Grangeville Branch were
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