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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol Well, the "Park" line was Potlatch, and the Elk River line was Milwaukee. I do recall that Potlatch had talked about an extension south into the Clearwater country, but that surveys had found the terrain "too rugged." Milwaukee had surveyed past Elk River, down Elk Creek into the Clearwater. A Potlatch predecessor, the Clearwater Timber Co. filed a survey in 1909 to build the "Orofino & Eastern RR" to buid north from Orofino to connect with the Milwaukee at Bovill. Weyerhausers were involved, and Charles Weyerhauser had wanted to build "a big dam" over the North Fork of the Clearwater, and extend the Milwaukee Road from Elk River over the dam to Orofino. Another survey was done in 1918-1919, and a Milwaukee engineer, J.A. Chamberlain, estimated in 1922 that a 41 mile mainline could be built for $2.7 million, presumably from Elk River. I drove that route about 30 years ago, and it looked practical. During the 1920s, however, management at CTC was going through a period of "musical Weyerhausers" and although a RR was built to Lewiston, the Depression hit and CTC was folded into Potlatch. [/quote] Well, that's interesting. Thanks for looking that information up for me Mike. Elk Creek does drain into the North Fork, which confluences with the Clearwater just west of Orofino. And there is a "big dam" now, Dworshak Dam, on the North Fork near the confluence. I suppose one could have run a railroad over such a dam, but I don't know that such would have been necessary to achieve a decent railroad guage from Elk River down to the Clearwater. If Weyerhauser was envisioning a dam similar to Dworshak, then you have a 600 foot high dam about 6 miles west of Orofino. That would have meant a 100 foot to the mile climb from Orofino to the dam crest, about a 2% climb, not to bad. Then of course you're across the river to the west side of the Canyon, which is the prefered side for building a railroad from the Clearwater to Elk River. So from the dam top at 1600' elevation to Elk River at 2900' elevation is a gain of 1300' elevation with 20 miles of grade at about 65' feet to the mile, about 1.3% grade, pretty decent. Contrasted with a grade starting at river level to Elk River, about 2000' at 20 miles is 100 feet to the mile or 2% grade. So I'm not sure why Weyerhauser thought a railline over such a dam would be necessary, unless he was envisioning something farther up the canyon, perhaps near today's Dent Bridge. The larger question would be - Why build from Elk River to Orofino at all? What would be the end game there? On the Blackfoot Branch and the Great Falls branch you had a potential second mainline over Cadette Pass. On the Seely line, you had a tapping into Canadian coalfields and a possible connection with the CP. The Elk River branch itself tapped some prime timber country. But what did Orofino offer? Orofino is dry rocky country. Potlatch and it's associated predessessors had no mill there, although Potlatch did own lots of timberland east of Orofino north of the Weippe Prairie, and they did build a mill in Jaype in the 1920's which was reached by the 4th sub of the Camas Prairie Railroad owned by NP and UP. Did Milwaukee covet the grain fields of the Camas Prairie south of Orofino (which would have required another long up grade to reach the prairie)? Or did they envision running a line along the Clearwater west to Lewiston, and perhaps the south bank of the Snake River to the Tri-Cities and Hanford (where Milwaukee already had a branch from Beverly at the foot of the Boylston grade)? However, knowing the geology of both the Elk Creek/North Fork canyons and the Potlatch River canyon, I don't see much difference in "difficulty" as far as construction goes, but at least the Potlatch River canyon is more direct to Lewiston (about 40 miles as the canyon goes), and one could still build from there up to the Camas Prairie, or build on down through Hell's Canyon south to the Treasure Valley and a UP connnection. The Elk River line from St. Maries to Bovill only has one short section of steep grade at Sherwin Summit (2.5%), while the line east from Bovill to Elk River runs over three distinct summits with 3% grades. A line from Bovill down to Lewiston would be ideal by comparison, e.g. a straight shot down. If the end game was Lewiston and either west to Hanford and/or south to the Camas Prairie or Southern Idaho, why would the railroad burden itself with a very difficult operating environment via Elk River?
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