Concrete branch

[Anonymous]

Being unable to easily check this kind of stuff myself can anyone provide me with some information on the branchline that ran to Concrete in WA? I understand it was GN then BN but is it still in service? if not when was it closed? I've seen pictures of quite lengthy trains running along here but not sure what it was along the line that generated the traffic. Thanx [:)]

[mudchicken]

Former Seattle & Northern Railroad branch was built 1890-1892, later absorbed by GN from Anacortes to Rockport....Abandoned in 1988 by BN (See ICC dockets AB-6-341X and AB-6-299X) Lawsuits continued thru 1997-98 spurred by NARPO nuts, local environmentalists and local governments over the railbanking and trails use/ landowner rights issues/ headaches...

Concrete used to be Cement City and from 1906 onward was a source for Southwest Portland Cement. After a disastrous fire in the town, almost all wooden buildings in the town were rebuilt as "fireproof" concrete structures. Seattle might be a radicallydifferent looking place if the basics of concrete construction had to come from much further away.

Mudchicken[banghead][banghead][banghead]

[CBQ_Guy]

I've got a friend who lived in that area for years, and who's wife lived there all/most of her life. They met when he was working there years ago.

He is modeling the area on his free lanced Princeton & Sedro Wooley HO layout in the garage. He has a link to the layout at <http://www.petteefamily.org/railroad/> if you're interested.

Enjoy!

[PNWRMNM]

Tyson,

Traffic on Concrete branch would have been cement, lumber, logs and misc mdse. If I recall corectly the line extended East of Concrete so there may have been inbound limestone to concrete. Would have been coal or fuel oil in to make the cement.

In early days cement would have been in box cars, later 50 or 70 ton hoppers. Cut lumber would be in box cars with a few flats for green lumber. Logs would have been on skeleton flats. GN had quite at fleet of them. Often the Class I railroad would allow the loggers to run on their branch lines for a short distance. Alternative would be to haul the logger's cars with Class I power crews and cabooses in either mixed freight or solid log trains. You can do almost anything with the logs and find a prototype for it, except for shays on the Class I. They were too slow and Class I track was too good. Logger would use a rod engine if hauling cars on Class I, even on logger's own "main" line.

Passenger may have been straight passenger train or mixed. Check old official guides.

Mac

[Anonymous]

Thank you all very much for your help. [:D]

I am planning to model a ficticous railroad in area sometime between 1985 and 1990 or so. My railroad however un-feasible in reality, would run from Seattle (or there abouts) northeast to Rockport and then on to CN and CP connections in BC. Theoretically this line would have been built on top of various abandonned logging and branch lines by some enterprizing wealthy businessman to provide a shortcut for through freight across the border. I was also planning on my fictious regional to run west from Rockport until i realised that GN had already done that!

So anyways, thank you for the help with the reasearch and hopefully my railroad and its alignment sounds completely absurd [:D]

Tyson