Harbor and picks up returning cars that were set out by the Linnton switcher. The Harbor Turn returns with the cars to the P&W yard at Albany. Although the overall train and car counts via Cornelius Pass are much lower in the P&W era, the train size can still be dramatic. It was not unheard of in recent years to have a 80-to-100-car, 10,000-ton Harbor Turn, al- though today’s typical train size is 40-50 cars. The road’s ex-BC Rail log cars rate at 100 tons fully loaded. With the exception of the mill at Banks, which is switched by a crew out of Hillsboro, there are no on-line industries that receive switching by the Turn.
The future of the route was in question for
some time due to a September 1994 fire that destroyed a large trestle on the north end of the Pass. In July 1998, a new metal bridge was in place and trains again ran over the hill. The bridge was named in memory of Ken Fleming, a well-known carman for the P&W. Until this year, a run across the Pass re- quired a time-consuming runaround at Banks to enter the former United Railways District.
From Tigard, the former SP line is used to Banks, where parallel former United Railways is met. Power was run around the train and then pulled east from the SP onto the United. The return trip required the opposite move. This run-around caused problems from time to time. Matt Adams remembers an un- usual situation that arose when they came into town with a large train. “We arrived at Banks with too many cars to run around,” recalls Adams. “This wasn’t a completely un- common occurrence a few years ago. Some- times, you’d take all the Port of Tillamook
Bay cars into town, run around, and then shove them out the POTB main. Then you’d be short enough to run around the logs. This day, we not only had a bunch of cars for the Port, we also had too many logs.” Adams continued, “I was working as a con- ductor at the time, and, instead of doing the extremely time-consuming double runaround, we split the power up. We had three units back then, an SD45, SD9, and SDP40F No. 644. After we got the POTB cars interchanged, I took the SD45 and SD9 and pulled the entire train into Banks and out the POTB as far as I
RIGHT: Eastbound Burlington Northern Train 398 (Albany-Pasco) crosse the big trestle over Dick Road just east of Bowers, Ore., in October 1986. RANDY NELSON BELOW: The speed is down to under ten m.p.h. as a loaded Harbor Turn crosses the Holcomb Creek trestle with a Geep and SD45 on June 17, 2011. This impressive bridge is set on a 1 percent grade, and the train is struggling to maintain speed. ROBERT W. SCOTT
42 MARCH 2015 •
RAILFAN.COM
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