Another trip down memory lane this week, but I'm hoping to do some railfanning this weekend, so there is hope. The PNWR Southbound Harbor Turn creeps across this high trestle on it's way to Banks Oregon. This is former NP/SP&S/BN United Railways district that heads from Linnton on the Wilamette River over Cornelius pass and into the Tualatin River Valley. At Banks, the power will swap ends and make it's way down former SP tracks to Beaverton where it will pick up a mixture of former BN/Oregon Electric and SP trackage on it's way to Tigard. Connect Oregon III grants are being used to put in what amounts to a U-turn at Banks so the power won't swap anymore and assuming they upgrade the track, other Portland bound trains will start using this route instead of the UP tracks.
Mapquest is reasonable if not superdetailed. http://mapq.st/YHYgKy Technically, the Lumber Mill and the joint trackage is Port of Tillamook Bay, but since the storm cut them off, they've leased it to PNWR. There will be a very tight completion of the wye. It took a long time to convince the property owners. Ironically, prior to PNWR and Tri-met, BN had a much nicer route here. The tracks that are now the MAX Blue line ran up to Cornelius Pass road and then continued on to Hillsboro, but a set of tracks split there, went over US 26 and on to Cornelius pass where it connected to the United Railways line. Though in this instance, I think the MAX is a better use of the right of way even though I'd have liked to see more trains and it would have made PNWR's life easier. Certainly there was duplicate tracks in Beaverton and Hillsboro. Whether or not the BN tracks would have been better kept and let the SP tracks be the max line is up for debate. The BN tracks went past Nike Corporate HQ and bisected the bulk of Intel's facilities whereas the SP tracks go by only one Intel facility. Although they do parallel the main drag through Beaverton and Hillsboro aka TV Highway. More than likely, development in the valley would have been very different if Tri-met had made a different choice.
Spotted this one recently. A new addition to the "cabins" at the Izaak Walton Inn, at Essex, Montana:
Yes, between 6 and Wilkesboro. I wonder why it takes Mapquest and Google so long to update ownership of railroad tracks. PNWR owns the united Railways district and the former SP is leased, so that should technically say UP.
A little video I completed yesterday from a 1999 trip to Alaska where we spent part of the trip on the ARR... [video=youtube;jR1tXtXBUiM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR1tXtXBUiM[/video]
