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Rare Mileage Trips Sponsored Excurision for 2006 by the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum in Oregon and Washington

Chehalis-Centralia Steam Charter

The next morning, Chris Parker, Jim Nowell, Bob Riskie and I met in the Dunes Motel parking lot and went to Elmer's for breakfast where I ordered French Toast and sausage. Bob went outside to use his mobile phone and came running back inside to say a train was coming. We all went out to the car for our cameras.

The Portland and Western train came down the middle of the street in Hillsboro with the same two locomotives that we saw yesterday at Banks. After finishing breakfast, we drove over Cornelius Pass to US Highway 30, turning west to St. Helens.

At St. Helens, we found the Portland and Western Astoria Line train switching. We then drove to Rainier and crossed over the Columbia River to Longview, Washington, passing through town, then onto Westside Highway and stopped at the bridge over the BNSF mainline.

Amtrak Cascades Train 500 sped by on its way to Seattle, Washington.

A few minutes later, a northbound Union Pacific freight on this joint BNSF/UP mainline. We went to a Chevron petrol station which had a Subway where we purchased sandwiches to take with us on our next train ride then drove Interstate 5 north to Exit 77 in Chehalis and pulled into the parking lot at the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad. Here we met Elizabeth Davidge, who had driven down from Lynnwood, with her friend Bob.

Our train today had Cowlitz, Chehalis & Cascade 2-8-2 15 open car 801 "Mount St. Helens" and coach 602 "City of Centralia", which was formerly Union Pacific.

I stashed my bag on the train before walking down to the shop where I photographed Puget Sound Naval Shipyard 44 ton switcher 9, nee United States Navy 65-00205 built by Vulcan Iron Works in 1942.

Cowlitz, Chehalis & Cascade 2-8-2 15, nee Clear Lake Lumber Company 200 built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1916. It was lettered for the Puget Sound & Cascade Railway, which was operated by Clear Lake, and worked hauling logs on Clear Lake's mainline until the company went bankrupt in 1926. Baldwin then repossessed 200 as it had not been fully paid for. It was sold to the Cowlitz, Chehalis & Cascade Railway in 1928 and renumbered 15.

The CC&C went into receivership in 1932 but was rescued in part by a consortium of the Northern Pacific, Great Northern, Union Pacific and Milwaukee Road in 1933. In 1952, however, the Long Bell Lumber Company, which accounted for 90 percent of its business, announced it was ceasing operation in the area. The company also learned that the city of Tacoma was planning to build two dams on the Cowlitz River, one of which would cover a bridge and three miles of its track. By 1954, the railway's freight service had fallen to one round trip per week (prior to that, it had made five trips a week). Soon after, abandonment of the CC&C was authorised by the Interstate Commerce Commission.

After the Cowlitz, Chehalis & Cascade was abandoned in 1955, 15 was donated to the City of Chehalis and went on display in a city park. Then, after the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad Association was founded in 1986, the locomotive was moved the Mt. Rainier Railroad's Mineral Shops where it spent two years being restored. The association also acquired a number of passenger carriages.

After being watered, the engine reversed down to our train for the afternoon.

The Chehalis Western purchased trackage from the Milwaukee Road from Chehalis to Raymond in 1936 and operated it as non-common carrier Chehalis Western Railroad. The line bought was 18 miles from Chehalis to Dryad. This line was not needed any more by the Milwaukee Road as it operated over a nearby Northern Pacific branch line. The Chehalis Western used only the first nine miles of this trackage from Chehalis to Ruth. A new line was built south from Ruth to Camp McDonald to where timber was ready to be cut. The logs would be taken from Camp McDonald to a log dump at South Bay near Olympia. In late 1975m the line was cut back to Curtis where a log reload was built. This truncated railroad was reorganized into the Curtis, Millburn and Eastern on December 1st, 1975.

The logs were now taken from Curtis to Chehalis where they were handed over to the Milwaukee Road. When the Milwaukee Road abandoned all of its trackage west of Miles City, Montana, the Curtis, Millburn & Eastern Railroad was absorbed into a new Chehalis Western. The former Milwaukee Road route to South Bay was taken over by the new Chehalis Western. The Chehalis-Centralia Railroad Association was formed in 1986 as a nonprofit corporation and the founders were a group of local citizens whose goal was to restore a 1916 logging locomotive that had been placed in a Chehalis park thirty years earlier. Early the following year, the restoration was begun and over the next two years, several railroad cars were acquired. With restoration completed, scheduled operations began in the summer of 1989 over a section of former Milwaukee Road track in the Chehalis-Centralia area. The Chehalis Western then shut down in 1992. The entire line was sold to the City of Tacoma in 1995 and renamed the Tacoma Eastern Railroad. It lasted just three years when in 1998 the railroad was taken over by Tacoma Rail.

With the engine now on the point of our train, I reboarded and enjoyed my Subway sandwich. We departed at 1:00 PM and proceeded west to the road crossing next to the Newaukum River for the first photo runby.

Photo runby one.

Reverse move one.

Cowlitz, Chehalis and Cascade 15. I rode in the open car and enjoyed the conversations with the other passengers between photo runbys.

Just before Stearn Creek we stopped for the second runby and here is the reverse move.

Photo runby two. We all reboarded and continued onward to Milepost 4.9, another grade crossing to detrain for what I called the "Lily Pad Runby".

The reverse move.

Photo runby three. It was decided to do another runby here so I relocated.

The reverse.

Photo runby four. We reboarded and the train rolled onward towards Millburn, where I would start my new mileage. A short distance later, we came to an abandoned quarry where we stopped for the next photo runby.

Here are the passengers unloading with Bob Riskie leading the way to the photo line.

The static pose of our train at Milepost 7.2.

The reverse move.

Photo runby five. Once that was completed, we paralleled the Chehalis River for a couple of miles on the way to Ruth.

Passing the junction of the South Fork of the Chehalis River with the main Chehalis River.

After we crossed the 1,083 foot long wooden trestle over the South Fork of the Chehalis River, we stopped at the red flag at Milepost 9.7, the end of our westbound run.

Here we left some luggage but I never found out why! Unattended luggage maybe? Passengers then detrained and went to a waiting car as they only needed a one-way trip.

The train then reversed to the west end of the South Fork of the Chehalis River trestle, where we all detrained for our sixth and last photo runby of the trip. To reach my photo location, I had to walk through grass taller than I was to a higher location in order to shoot over the grass.

Posed on the trestle.

Reversing off the bridge.

Photo runby six.

The Chehalis River.

The South Fork of the Chehalis River.

At Ruth, our engine ran around the train to pull us backwards to Chehalis.

The Ruth station sign. Good conversations were had in the open car on the way back.

Chehalis River.

The view to where we had just been.

The view towards the front of our train.

A last view of the Chehalis River.

My final picture on this fantastic trip sponsored by the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum. I enjoyed many great conversations the whole way back to Chehalis, where this trip ended.

We said our goodbyes then the four of us drove north to Tacoma and the Tacoma Rail yard.

Tacoma Rail locomotives.

Tacoma Rail GP20 2003, ex. Tacoma Municipal Belt Line 2003, exx. National Railway Equipment 2003, exxx. Arizona Central 2003, exxxx. Southeast Coal 2006, exxxxx. Union Pacific 472 nee Union Pacific 702:3 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1960 on a switch job at the west end of the yard. Next we drove to the Amtrak station where we purchased tickets for our Friday morning trip from Seattle since we decided to take an early morning Sounder train from Tacoma to Seattle. The next stop was Freighthouse Square where a food court provided a chance for dinner. Of the four places we tried, only one was decent.

An after-dinner ride on Tacoma Link.

Jim and I checked into the Tacoma Dome Motel, a great location, but not recommended. Bob and Chris decided a Best Western would better suit their needs, so they reserved a room there and while they did, I aired out our room and then relaxed for the rest of the night.

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