Twilight For The OC&E

by Donovan Michael Gray © 1990
for CTC Board Magazine: June, 1990 Issue #167

	In business, including the railroad business, the rules are "supply and demand."  When the supply in timber slackens, the demand for a dedicated log hauler like the Oregon, California and Eastern Railway Company drops away, quickly.  The final word came down to OC&E's 18 employees March 29 and the line, in business since 1916, ceased mainline operations May 1 [1990].
	As recent as January of this year the future looked - well, if not bright, at least reasonable for this little Northwest shortline.  Wholly owned by the vast estates of the Weyerhaeuser Company, the OC&E's task in life was relatively simple: move raw logs from the forests of southeastern Oregon from a reload point at Bly, 63 miles east of the Weyerhaeuser mill at Klamath Falls, to the Company Sort Yard just southwest of this busy railroad and logging city of 17,000 people.  And, except in late winter and spring, pick up more logs at Sycan, junction between the OC&E and Weyerhaeuser's Woods Line near Beatty.  Strictly a company logger, the Woods Line ran another 45 miles north from Sycan to the "500 Transfer," just over the Klamath/Lake county line.  Its last run was February 2 of this year.
	The OC&E, however, is a bonafide down-to-earth railroad, an intrastate common carrier, described by its General Manager as "Class II by track, Class III by revenue."  The company, or its management, belong to such professional groups as the American Shortline Railway Association, the Railway Fuel and Operating Officers Association, American Association of Railroad Superintendents and the International Association of Railway Officers.
	As a common carrier, it will continue to meet switching obligations for local Klamath Falls customers, mostly WITCO Chemical on Hillyard Street.  But those half-mile long snaking strings of fresh-cut pine and fir, moving over mountain and through desert thrice weekly, are most likely gone forever.
	Increasing uncertainty about timber supply, and the fixed routing of the OC&E brought on the line's demise, according to Weyerhaeuser officials.  "There's not enough (timber) volume within reach of the railheads," said Dave Peterson, Weyerhaeuser's Administrative and Finance Director in Klamath Falls.  "We looked at where the timber is, and where we're buying.  We won't move enough volume on the OC&E in the future to meet our return on investment."  And so it goes, or rather, ends.
	In the Northwest, timber supply is one of the hottest topics around.  A large part of the debate over regional forest management centers around setting aside large stands of old-growth timber to protect wildlife habitat, particularly the spotted owl.  The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to rule by early summer on including the spotted owl as an "endangered species," a move which would result in reducing timber harvests from Federal land in the Northwest by as much as 50%.  Even President Bush has now entered the dialogue.
	In the Winema National Forest, where the OC&E operated, available timber would drop from 190 million board feet (mmbf) to 110 mmbf over the next five years.  The estimated direct job loss resulting in the timber industry is 664 people from the Winema reduction alone.  Statewide in Oregon, both direct and indirect loss of jobs may well total over 25,000 by 1995.
	Weyerhaeuser's reducing their Klamath Falls workforce by 390 people, a 30% retrenchment, down from 1,300.  Four headrigs (large saws geared for old-growth timber) will be reduced to two.  "Large wood is going down," explained Dave Peterson.  "We've seen a 40-50% dropoff in volume of old growth."  More emphasis will be placed on processing smaller, second-growth stands.  The plant's annual output of finished lumber, plywood and particle board will drop from around 200 mmbf to less than 130 mmbf.  Railcar loadings for SP and BN will drop even more, from over 5,000 a year to 2,000 or so.
	In that light, 18 less workers on the OC&E may seem somewhat inconsequential, but this was no ordinary railroad, and it wasn't run by ordinary people.  The crews were a fascinating mix of loggers and hogheads, a multi-talented group drawn from both sides of the forest, and one not likely to be repeated again.  At the end, six were employed on the trains, along with ten sectionmen and two holding down the administration.
	Bob Coombes, who says he's "49 going on 100" is Vice-President and General Manager of OC&E.  He explains his role as being more the facilitator than anything else.  "I sit back and don't really do that much, but listen to what the problems are, what the solutions might be and couple those together.  Safe and efficient operation, and the maintenance of track are my primary concerns."
	He joined Weyerhaeuser 21 years ago, after graduating from the University of Washington in 1969 with a Forestry Engineering degree.  Bob carries out railroad operations from a small module building located just off Washburn Way, in east Klamath Falls next to the OC&E yard.  Lining his bookshelf are dozens of manuals and directories that help guide his administration of the company: Manual for Railway Engineering, a Foster Rail Products catalog, Antitrust Compliance Program for Domestic Transportation, and Union Switch & Signal's Search for Safety. 
	Bob's previous exposure to railroading was limited "to a model railroad when I was a kid.  I really learned the railroad trade by osmosis.  Anyone who has worked in the woods has some maintenance background automatically.  You don't survive in the woods without knowing how to fix things."  He started by laying out logging roads for Weyerhaeuser up in Washington, then became a construction foreman.   Bob moved down to Oregon in 1975, and to the Woods Line at Sycan three years later, becoming Roadmaster in 1981.
	"I first started by riding the train and talking to the crews, learning their concerns about the track.  I've always been very fortunate to have good people around me, excellent people who had come off mainline railroads.  With them, it's a two-way street: know what's going on and then keep out of their hair."
	It was during this period that Bob contributed to much of what the OC&E used in daily operations until the end.  "We built everything, including most of what rolls today.  The woodsill log cars, called 'wood bellies' by the crews, had small journals and archbar trucks, and were prone to hotboxes," he explained.  To modernize the fleet, replace equipment lost in derailments, as well as cope with a large upturn in logging traffic, Weyerhaeuser started switching to steel cars beginning in 1976.  "We cut the tops off of boxcars.  We bought flat cars and converted them.
	"We even drew our own plans and built three cabooses.  Thirty feet was as short as we could make them and still have room for the trucks to turn," he says, explaining that "the shorter the better," to allow maximum train length of loaded log cars.  "Because our trains moved so slowly, we had to devise a special double gearing arrangement for the generators to turn fast enough off the axle.  Bay windows wouldn't work because of the danger of a log getting stuck in a cut and coming back on the crew, so we went to the extended vision cupola."  The cabooses meet all FRA standards, including bulletproof glass.
	After being let go from the Woods Line during the recession in 1981, Bob went "back to work in the woods" until 1984, when he took over the OC&E.   "When I left the Woods Line, I'd learned the basic introduction (to railroading) but coming to the OC&E I had to learn the Federal standards.  The section foremen kept me out of trouble during the first few years I was here, and the FRA and PUC spent considerable time pointing out not where problems were, but where they might develop.  We had a very nonadversarial relationship."
	While there is an air of conviction and surety about his remarks, one senses clearly an able but unassuming man here, even somewhat humble in the recognition that he is the last in a long line of extraordinary leadership for what has been one of Oregon's most fascinating shortlines.

*       *

	The OC&E survived this late into the 20th century because of the ingenuity and creativity of people like Bob and the close-knit family of co-workers that made this operation possible for so long.  As it was run, the OC&E was born also in ingenuity, a product of Robert E. Strahorn, a well-educated man of mixed reputation.  Born in 1852 in Pennsylvania, Strahorn started his long, colorful career at the age of 13 as a printer, soon abandoned for editorial work "because of delicate health."   For the next 13 years he worked as a journalist, and then joined the military under General Crook during the Sioux War of 1875-76.  Strahorn entered the railroad business in 1878, working in engineering, construction, traffic and operating departments of the Colorado Central, Kansas Pacific, Denver & Rio Grande, and the Union Pacific, where he organized its first advertising and publicity department.
	After five years, Strahorn began developing townsites and irrigation projects in Idaho, Oregon and Washington.  He is credited with founding the Idaho railroad towns of Haley, Shoshone, Payette, Caldwell and Mountain Home, as well as Ontario, Oregon.
	His career as shortline builder began in 1905, constructing (then selling) several in the Willamette Valley of northwest Oregon before turning his attention to the Klamath Falls region in 1915.  Here, Southern Pacific had pushed north from Black Butte by 1909, and Strahorn developed plans for a far-flung "Strahorn System," 400 miles of track connecting Lakeview, Bend and Klamath Falls through a hub at Silver Lake, and stretching east from Bend to a Burns connection with the Union Pacific.  Estimated cost was $6 million, and construction was inaugurated with a $300,000 municipal bond issue by Klamath Falls.  The Klamath Falls Municipal Railway thus was launched on July 4, 1917 amid much civic fanfare and built as far east as Dairy, 18.5 miles away, about as far as the money would go.
	Through the early 1920's, Strahorn sought to raise additional capital for construction, mostly from the Bay Area, but cash was not forthcoming.  Further construction was then financed from operating revenues of the fledgling line, by now renamed the OC&E, and it took until 1923 to reach Sprague River, MP39.  He had originally planned to bore through Bly Mountain, which blocked easy access to the Sprague River Valley, with a 1,300 foot tunnel.  Again, lack of capital drove him to construct a double switchback, reportedly unique in the world for a standard gauge railroad.  The line finally reached Bly, as far toward Lakeview as it would ever go, in November, 1928.
	An interesting twist to the OC&E's construction lies at MP24 just before Horton.  As Strahorn built up the Valley, a family farm's earthen dam blocked the line's passage.  Not easily fazed, Strahorn negotiated purchase of the land, drained the lake, then punched a hole through the dam and built on up toward Squaw Flat and Bly Mountain.  The dam still stands, neatly dissected by the OC&E.
	In the Willamette Valley, Strahorn had developed a cozy relationship with the Southern Pacific, starting feeder lines which he then sold to Espee at a healthy profit.  In southern Oregon, he succeeded again, combining a filing with the ICC for line expansion with a negotiated sale to Southern Pacific.  The ICC approved the OC&E extensions, to Silver Lake and Lakeview in 1926 and for Southern Pacific to acquire the line in 1927, but on condition that half-interest be acquired by the Great Northern Railway.
	GN had entered the picture through its Oregon Trunk operation.  Their plans to build down from Bend through Silver Lake to Klamath Falls were truncated into a negotiated agreement with SP for trackage rights from Chemult to Klamath Falls.  Because of Oregon Trunk/GN's interest in building through OC&E territory, the ICC felt GN should be awarded partial access to the region.  Thus began almost fifty years of shared operations of OC&E between the SP and GN (later BN), an arrangement lasting until Weyerhaeuser's acquisition of the shortline in 1975.  Each company operated the OC&E for five-year cycles.
	Passenger trains didn't run much on the OC&E, with early records showing a scheduled train to Sprague River in the early 1920's.  After two years of negotiations, the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the NRHS ran an excursion over the line September 3, 1983 in conjunction with Great Western Tours, and a Weyerhaeuser directors' special, replete with BN diner, operated on September 12, 1988.
	Typical traffic from the 1930's through the 1950's was 8,000 log cars per year plus a small assortment of miscellaneous on-line freight.  Into the 1950's, for instance, many farms had storage cellars at trackside for storing vegetables, largely potatoes, for shipment.  The SP or GN trains would trundle down the line stopping frequently to load LCL shipments of potatoes, truly a back-breaking assignment for the crews.
	A GN timetable effective February 16, 1941 shows one Second Class freight a day, trains #1-2 leaving Klamath Falls and Bly at 11:30am and 5:15pm respectively.  They were carded over the line in three hours forty five minutes each way.  The same company's card in 1963 boasts two.  #658-659 departed Klamath Falls at 10:01am, arriving Bly at 1:25pm, out at 2pm for a 5:40pm return to town.  #660-661 followed with a run to Sycan, up at 11:30am for a 2:30pm arrival, out at 3pm for a 6pm tieup.  All ran "Daily Except Sunday."  Only GP-9's were listed as the "Nominal Class."
	It was Weyerhaeuser's action in 1970 to acquire and modernize a mill at Bly that led to that company's direct purchase of the OC&E.   During the 1960's, Weyerhaeuser shipments began to increase, reaching 18,000 cars in 1970 when the Bly mill was purchased and upgraded.  Neither SP or BN was much inclined to spend beyond the minimum necessary to keep operating during their five-year tenures, and it was their lack of interest in gearing up for more hauling that led Weyerhaeuser to negotiate the buy.
	 Acquired for $2.38 million in 1975, the OC&E was due for a major overhaul.  The years of neglect by BN and SP were causing almost a derailment a day.  "In the early days, we used the number of derailments a month as a management tool," Dave Peterson laughed.  Weyerhaeuser pumped $7.8 million more into the line during the next seven years to bring it up to snuff.  Neil McKellips, experienced with logging railroad operations at Potlatch Corporation in Idaho, was brought in as General Manager to direct the renovation and get the line back on its feet.
	"The last year BN was here, we got 300 ties to go the whole 60 miles," recalled Leland Young, OC&E Section Foreman.  Leland, 43, covered the Sprague River to Bly segment, working with Ralph Bemisdarfer and Roy Gravem.  Leaning on the back of his hi-railer truck in Sycan Yard on the last day of operations, Leland talked about his 21 years with the OC&E.  "We had lots of 10mph track, so we started in on tie replacement," said Leland.  "We were putting in 6,000-8,000 ties a year for three to four years, and dumping a lot of ballast.  We contracted a tamper at first, then us poor souls on the section crew finally convinced (management) it would be cheaper in the long run to buy their own tamper and train one of us to use it.  We had a foreman and three to four men just rebuilding switches, mostly in the summertime, for a couple of years (there are approximately 40 switches on the main line).  Ties, well, we kept up that pace until 1987, when we were finally getting caught up."
	Rail and spikes were always second-hand, curves and some straight laid with 90lb, the rest Carnegie "75-13" or "75-87" made in the 1920's and known as 68lb.  East of Sprague River, 100lb was finally laid in through MP57.  Weyerhaeuser bought used rail "from all over, but they always bought tested rail," Leland remarked.  He had served 23 years in railroading, hiring onto the OC&E right out of Bonanza High School, then to the SP for nine months before coming back to the OC&E.
	Born in Klamath Falls, he lived in Sprague River for 37 years until moving "back to town" in 1984.  "There used to be two road jobs a day, one in the yard, six days a week," he reflected.  "Up until five or six years ago, this was a year-round job.  Then there was a spring layoff, but still ten months a year with a month's vacation.  This was up until January.  So a fella doesn't look for a job -- you can handle a month off, you know.  Then we started hearing rumors about 'making the Eastern Oregon Region more profitable,' and come March 29, they announce the line would close.  It's kinda hard to write a resume now," he said with an edge of resignation in his voice.  Anything more?  "Oh no.  That's about it.  The end of history."
	Leland had worked on the switchback construction in 1982, when dual tailtracks were built to expand train lengths from 46 to 92 cars, though switching logistics at Bly had made 80 to 86 car trains more practical.  Weyerhaeuser construction crews dug out the hillsides, while OC&E crews built 30' and 33' track panels in jigs at Sycan.  After the grading was complete, they took just four weeks to slide the existing single track inward and lay the track panels outward with an old military self-propelled rail crane (an Orton, ex-USN84-00305, built about 1940).
	In the first years of Weyerhaeuser operation of OC&E the line was busy indeed.  As many as seven jobs a day were called: three to four road trips, and three crews in the yard.   When logs from Sycan couldn't be handled by the Bly Turn, an extra crew was called in Klamath Falls for the afternoon.  They would take the power from the Sort Yard crew, run to Sycan in the evening and return by early morning.
	The wisdom of Weyerhaeuser's acquisition of OC&E can be viewed in terms of subsequent loadings, which peaked at over 35,000 yearly loads by 1978-79.  This included 4,000 loads of lumber and chips from the Bly mill.  By 1982, loads were down to 14,276, generating $2.46 million in revenues.  The line then employed 38: 15 maintenance of way, along with one mechanical and two administration.  It took another 20 in train crew service to get 80 to 90 loads a day out from Bly, 45 cars at a time.  The first crews would run into the 12-hour Federal Railway Administration "Hours of Service" limits around Hildebrand or Dairy.  There, a "dogcatcher" crew would be driven out to bring in the loads to Klamath Falls.  After the switchback rebuild in 1982, operations were streamlined to one long train easily completing the roundtrip in 12 to 13 hours with a crew of five: engineer, fireman, conductor, head and rear brakemen.  That's how it ran until the end.
	"We've got an FRA waiver to exceed the Hours of Service limit in emergencies on our own line" explains Bob Coombes.  "We're usually not more than 15-30 minutes over the limit, and the crews bring the train on in.  It wasn't always that way, though," Bob recalls.  "We used to have quite a fight sometimes, but in the last few years, the crews have realized the importance of collaboration.  They've really been remarkable, they've busted their butts (to save the operation) but it just wasn't enough."
	The OC&E most recently operated on a $1.8 million annual budget, including all operational overhead.  Weyerhaeuser would give the OC&E an annual estimate on the amount of logs to be hauled.   The railroad would then calculate a tariff based on operating costs: $220 a car from Bly, $200 from Sycan, which was two hours less.  "It's a function of logging cost," explained Coombes.  "All we want to have is a tariff competitive to trucks, to show it is as cheap to move by rail.  We take the cost for the preceding year, look at maintenance, forecast labor costs and convert it all into a per-car rate."
	Off the extra board, engineers were paid $120.08 a day, conductors $107.64, and brakeman $101.25.  Operating men belong to the United Transportation Union, and other non-management are in the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way.  OC&E has kept jobs from being bulletined by alternating hauls to Bly and to the Sort Yard.  This way, no job ran the three consecutive days required for a bulletin job.  With the curtailment of operations, the in-town yard job will be called when needed.
	The line turned a profit on operations four out of the last five years as it did most of its existence under Weyerhaeuser ownership, albeit a modest one: $4,000 in 1989.  That year's records show 8,303 loads: three cars of potatoes, eight of scrap, 678 switched into WITCO, and 7,614 forty and fifty foot cars of logs trundled across Bly Mountain for the parent company. 

An Eclectic Roster for An Unusual Line

	OC&E has always been characterized by a wide dimension of locomotives from an equally broad range of sources.  From the very beginning, everything was second-hand, led by a Manchester 4-4-0 built in 1883 for the Oregon Railway & Navigation Railway, acquired by Strahorn, no doubt, through his UP connections which may have also supplied an 1888 Baldwin 2-6-0 #12 from Spokane International.  This became OC&E #2.  A Pittsburgh 2-8-0, built in 1899, followed to become OC&E #3, and then GN and SP took over.  GN tended to run O class Mikes and F class Consolidations, while SP first tried their F class "decks," 2-10-2's which proved to be hard on rail.  Articulated AC-1's through AC-3's followed, transferred off the Modoc Line.  When diesels took over, SD-9's and GP-9's were the power of choice for both companies, although SP tried F-7's briefly in the mid-1960's.

	When OC&E came into Weyerhaeuser hands in 1975, motive power was equally as mixed.   In the beginning there was the Cadillac, as SD-9’s were known on the SP.  To get operations underway, Weyerhaeuser made a deal to purchase five SP SD-9's with the line, for an add-on cost of $360,000.  When delivered, not a one ran.  So OC&E had to lease an additional five units from SP for $375 a day, each.  This time they got SD-9E/GP-9E's, and they actually worked.
	Management then decided the answer lay in purchasing even more power from their former owner, this time four RSD-12's.  Coming from SP, they needed rebuilding, and two units made it through Sycan Shop to be placed into actual service.  While waiting on the reconditioning of the RSD-12's, the line turned this time to BN, leasing one of their NW2's for mill switching, followed by four former GN and NP F-7's, run in two sets back-to-back.
	Desperate for reliable locomotives that wouldn't bankrupt the operation, General Manager McKellips turned to Morrison-Knudsen's rebuild program in Boise.  M-K had successfully supplied other Weyerhaeuser rail operations with reliable power, and McKellips may also have been familiar with the company's work from his Potlatch railroad days in Idaho.
	OC&E acquired five TE53-1-4E's and two slugs (class S3-3BE) tooled from former UP U25B's, including two of General Electric's original demonstrators.  At their heart were EMD 16-567BC engines and generators, pulled from former B & O F-7's.  Ordered in late 1975, the units began arriving on the property during the summer of 1976, operating in powered pairs spliced by a slug.  The fifth TE53-1-4E allowed units to be rotated into the shop for 90-day FRA inspections without disrupting road operations.
	In the sense that these emerged as something "totally new," though rebuilt from various sources, the M-K's were the first "new" power purchased in the history of the OC&E, except for two Baldwin S-8 switchers acquired in 1951.
	The Final Four were Baldwin RS-12's, acquired from Seaboard Air Line in 1978 to help cope with ever-increasing traffic volume.  However, one last arrival was #310, transferred in 1979 from Weyerhaeuser's Longview Woods Line.  This was another M-K U25B rebuild that ended up on the Sycan Woods Line and worked the OC&E occasionally to relieve the other power.   The unit worked well through 1986 only to have its engine fried from low water due to crew neglect.  It's still out back of Sycan Shop, gutted and truckless.
	Some engineers reportedly found the RS-12's a great deal more interesting to work with than the M-K's.  Though lower in horsepower (1,200 vs 1,500 on the M-K's), the lack of dynamic brakes made train running an adventure.  "They really challenged you as an engineer," reminisced OC&E engineer Terry Preston.
	The RS-12's had a 6L airbrake stand, as opposed to the M-K's 26RL's that have a pre-set application of six to eight pounds of air.  That pre-set leaves the engineer no choice in how much air to use in train handling.  The M-K's extended range dynamic brake equipment also reduces to a minimum the amount of air needed to safely descend the Switchback on either side.
	With the lack of dynamic brakes on the RS-12's, "we were supposed to turn up all the retainers at the top of the grade," recalled Terry.  "The train was then controlled with anywhere from a three to ten pound application, which would leak off, and then you'd have to reset, with the retainers holding back the train.  I rode the caboose once under those conditions, and when the slack would run out, it could throw a guy clear through the front wall.
	"Dick Snyder, one of the old engineers who had worked steam, showed me a way to 'trick the train.'
	"There was a feed valve right beside the engineer's seat that adjusted the amount of air in the line.  You'd carry 80lbs pressure in the yard, 90lb on the road, 110lb for passenger.  Now the freight cars are set to run with 90lbs, but by adjusting the feed valve the engine would actuate the brakes at 85lb.  You had to guess at first, but after a few times, you knew how much to turn the valve for the size train you had.
	"Now, by hitting and releasing the air just once a tad bid after that, the train brakes would set up as if they had a 5lb application, and they'd stay there.  It was just like the retainers were being used, only better, because they wouldn't leak off.  It was all illegal as hell but it kept the train stretched out, and the ride was much safer for the conductor and rear brakeman."
	As traffic thinned out in the mid-1980's, so did the Baldwins.  The RS-12's were placed into storage and finally sold off, as were the Woods Line's S-8's and DS-4-4-750's.  Finally both the Woods Line and OC&E were an all-EMD domain, even with those deceiving GE looks on the M-K's.

From Many Lasted Only One: The Woods Line and Its Early Cousins

	In the early years of OC&E, several other logging companies built off the main to reach private timber stands.  Just below the West Switchback, Shaw-Bertram Lumber built northwest beginning in 1926 for a total of 13 miles with a maximum 5% grade, operated with Shays.  The line was pulled up in the late 1930's.  At Sprague River, Ewauna Box Company built to the east in 1922 and in 1924 laid out 15 miles of track northwest.  Another spur built in 1929 extended 18 miles east of Bly, with the last lines abandoned in 1948.
	To the southeast of Sprague River ran the Crater Lake Lumber Company's railroad, eventually reaching 15 miles into the timber, and operated through 1943.  Also from Bly operated the Pelican Bay Lumber Company line beginning in 1929 for about five years, 15 miles to the southeast.  Though OC&E's recent haulage has been exclusively for Weyerhaeuser, in earlier years many of these companies fed logs over the OC&E to competitive mills in Klamath Falls.
	The largest and latest construction was the "Woods Line," began in 1940 by Weyerhaeuser from Beatty to numerous points in the north and northeast: Camp 6, Camp 9, Camp 15, and the 500 Transfer, some 45 miles almost due north.  The line operated until February 2 of this year with a ruling grade of 2%.  Steam operations included 2-8-2's and 2-6-6-2's, including the famous Sierra #38 (Weyerhaeuser #4), built in 1934, and #6, now operating in television's "Twin Peaks" country at the Snoqualmie Valley Railroad outside Seattle.  Diesels began with an ALCO S-1, followed by Baldwin DS4-4-750 demonstrators 750/751, and a pair of Baldwin S-8's, bought new from the factory in 1951.  
	The Baldwin quartet powered the line from 1951 into the early 1980's, augmented by the BLW RS-12's shared with the OC&E.  The next wave began with second-hand BN GP-9's, 311 (low-nose BN1757), 312 (BN1870) and 314 currently being rostered.  The 314, which lacks dynamic brakes, is the most recent addition, brought down from BN's Interbay shop in Seattle.  Larry Hoff, Trainmaster for the Woods Line ("I should really be called General Manager"),  emphasizes what a good investment the Woods Line has been for Weyerhaeuser.  "We paid $10,000 for the 314 two years ago, and it'll probably bring $100,000-$125,000 on the market now."
	Compared to the M-K units, the Geeps possess greater pulling power and worked out well.  Tonnage charts bear this out, showing 1,050 maximum tons for a GP-9 up the West Switchback of the OC&E, compared to 985 tons for an M-K.  A typical Woods Line Logger had two GP-9's with both OC&E slugs sandwiched between.  The Geeps would consume about 350 gallons of fuel apiece during the eight to nine hour trip.  Train length was 80-85 cars, "to fit the track structure," Larry explained.  The operating cycle was to run between the 500 Transfer and Sycan from May into January and then shut down six weeks or so for "the breakup (spring thaw) in March and April."
	The S-8's were also used by the OC&E to switch between the Sort Yard and OC&E.  Two of the five-stackers would haul loads to the mill, 45 to 50 cars at a time.  The Baldwins were sold off in the past few years, the best going to the Escanaba & Lake Superior, with demonstrator 750 to Northwest Rail Equipment in Portland, Oregon.  It still sits on the OC&E/SP interchange in Klamath Falls awaiting air lines before SP will accept it for transit.
	The slugs came over to the Woods Line upon completion of the new tailtracks on Bly Mountain in 1982.  With OC&E train length now doubled, operations dropped from two to one Bly Turn a day.  Where the shorter trains called for two of the M-K rebuilds with a slug (tonnage rating 3,640 westbound), now a single train could be handled with four powered M-K's without slugs (5,200 tons maximum).  Actual practice, however, was another thing entirely.  Crews regularly took trains in excess of 7,000 tons westward through the switchbacks, albeit slowly.
	The shift did not displease either party.  OC&E crews had grown to dislike the slugs which could have an annoying habit of getting their wires crossed, suddenly running in one direction while the locomotives pulled the other.  The lack of sanders on the slugs led OC&E brakeman Truman Gosney to explain another aspect of OC&E crew creativity.  "We'd swing off and run ahead of the units, throwing dirt on the track, with no one left on board.  Anything to keep from doubling the hill," he laughed.  The crews like the powered M-K's, that were designed specifically for this service.  Engineer Terry Preston noted that "the GE trucks are excellent, a little slow on the switching but great luggers.  They produce less curve wear than the SD-9's, though those had better dynamic brakes" than the rebuilt U25B's.
	Larry Hoff considers the slugs a blessing.  "It takes 22 man hours to do an (90-day) inspection on the Geeps, and 30 minutes on the slugs," said Hoff matter-of-factly, who joined Weyerhaeuser 16 years ago on their Longview (Washington) woods line.  He came to Sycan six years ago, responsible for all maintenance and operations, the job formerly held by OC&E chief Bob Coombes.
	The wind whips across the Sprague River Valley on a late April afternoon, but inside the well-insulated Sycan Shop it's eerily quiet as Larry sits perched on a workbench sharing insights into the Woods Line operation.  "When I took over here we had derailments all over the place.  Crews were pushing their trains to 23, 25, even 28mph.  I slapped a 13mph speed limit on the line and all the derailments stopped."  A man not to leave matters to chance, Larry set the governors on all units for 18mph.
	Woods Line operations have gone through continuing reduction this past decade, as have the OC&E's.  Larry explained how when he first arrived to take over the Woods Line in 1984, "there were 23 men working here, and at the close we had 11.  Train crews had a four-man minimum: engineer, conductor and two brakemen.  When they weren't running trains, they were section hands, working maintenance.  Twelve men worked the trains in 1984, down to four in January.  In the shop, we used to have four mechanics and three electricians, and now we're down to two and one, mostly through attrition."
	Operating under the Weyerhaeuser description of "East Side Logging and Transportation," the Woods Line had no operating budget as such.  "It was open-ended, though we had a goal of coming in under $5 a cunit haulage cost," Larry explains.  (In Weyerhaeuser language, a cunit measures 100 cubic feet of timber resource, a more accurate measurement than the older Scribner Scale of board feet.)  "In 1988 we had a capital budget of $250,000, just for the rail line, over and above maintenance.  In 1989 that was cut to $200,000."  And now, nothing.  Larry's not sure what he'll do next, "but it will be fun.  Not that this hasn't been, but I mean real fun."
	Closing day we meet Cliff Carter, 42, the remaining shop electrician who relates how he "tore all the electrical cabinets out of the BN units so the slugs would run with them."  Cliff has been at Sycan with the Woods Line for 13 years as "the locomotive mechanic - until today.  I started out at Barstow on the Santa Fe.  I used to work summers on the ice docks, third shift while in college.  Then I was four years an electrician apprentice, one year journeyman in the Barstow Shops but I wanted to get out of California, so I came here."  He describes the range of activity at Sycan.  "We do everything: jack 'em, change wheels and trucks, the works.  With our overhead crane, we even put a new engine in 7602 and two generators.  We did it all."  After he's cut from the payroll June 4, Cliff hopes to land a job on Simpson Timber's rail operation out of Shelton, Washington.
	The Woods Line has been integral to the operations of the OC&E, for here at Sycan all OC&E work was done, including regular servicing and the full range of repair described by Cliff.  
	Sometimes the Shop crews were too enthusiastic, illustrating the problems that would occasionally crop up from loggers somewhat shy on understanding railroad equipment.  OC&E crews recall a period when the Shop went on a steam cleaning binge, making sure all equipment was grease and oil free.   While bulldozers and stackers might fare well under such treatment, locomotives are more particular.   Terry Preston remembered that "by the time we'd pull out onto the main at Beatty, the relays would ground out.  And, by the way, that's why Cliff got to replace generators in 7602 -- they cooked them both with their little steam baths."
	Sycan Shop also built (or rebuilt) the 329 log cars owned by the Woods Line but shared with OC&E.  OC&E's actual car roster is rather abbreviated:

	OCEX 104-107	60 and 80 cubic yard rock gondolas, ex-				WP and UP
	OCEX 108-111	30 cubic yard airdump ballast cars
	OCE   2006	Former SP caboose
	OCE   2007-2008	30' cabooses (built at Sycan)

	Some 140 50' plug door box cars also carry OC&E reporting marks, leased through the Brae Corporation, a subsidiary of GE Rail.  OC&E, however, is not involved in management of these cars, and for all practical purposes they're not considered part of the operation.
	The Woods Line roster is more varied, including two wedge snowplows, ten ballast cars, 12 flat cars including seven idlers (placed before the rear caboose for crew safety) two cabooses and a former wine tank car now used to store various lubricating oils.
	The snowplows were used as recently as three years ago.  "The Geeps can plow up to about two feet on their own, but beyond that, it's time for the Wedge," says Larry.  Drifting snow in cuts along the Woods Line creates the primary need, but the drought of recent years has let them languish in the scrapyard out behind Sycan Shop. 
	
The Final Days

	Thursday, April 26 is the next-to-last trip with loads to the mill.  Endless clouds touched with occasional rain are rolling down Klamath Lake from the north.  The wind is usually blowing hereabouts and this morning there's no exception.  The day holds little promise for physical comfort, or half-decent photography.
	Robert "Luke" Lucas carries the title of Carman, but even Bob Coombes considers Luke the spine that keeps everything together.  He's crew caller, paper-shuffler, in-town mechanic and hostler, tariff clerk and just about anything else needed.  Though Ron Hamilton is Operations Supervisor, Luke handles a lot of that work as well: waybills, computer entry, and maintaining the equipment roster.  During a labor strike in 1986, he even became engineer, switching the Plant and helping bring trains down off the Woods Line into town.
	Luke arrives at the yard at 2am, climbs up on the power and starts opening the 64 petcocks on as many cylinders to blow down the engines.  After closing them again, he cranks the electric starters and the engines lumber to life for their minimum hour-long warmup period.  Luke starts checking oil and water levels and makes the 5am crew call for the trip to the Sort Yard.  When they go to Bly, it's 5:30 or 6am, but the earlier departure helps the crew cross the SP before Amtrak #14, due into Klamath Falls at 7:14am.
	This day, as it was most often, Terry Preston takes the right side of 7602.  The 7604 is rotated out at Sycan for its 90-day inspection, so 7605, 7601 and 7603 are trailing, with 75 loads.  M. R. "Pete" Peterson fires (who Terry calls "the other engineer").  Pete's only five days behind Preston in seniority; they've both put in over 19 years with the road.  Larry Monteith is conductor with 15 years' service, Truman Gosney (12 years) head brakeman and Jamie Berg (10 years) on the rear. 
	Monteith, 42, hired on the OC&E "the first day Weyerhaeuser bought it.  I'm senior trainman."  A three-year Navy veteran, he first worked for BN as a switchman in 1970 before coming over to the OC&E.  Pete, sporting a Chicago Bears hat, worked as a hostler for NP in Pasco, then Seattle and finally Portland before being furloughed by BN in 1971, when he came down to the OC&E.  Jamie, 30, breaks horses at the family ranches in Keno and Merrill when not working the Logger.  Railroading runs in the family.  Brother Corey works for BN switching, while his father, Richard, also a former OC&E hand, is switch foreman on SP, both in Klamath Falls.
	Truman used to drive the Chevron truck that once a week would fill the 2,900 gallon fuel tanks on the M-K's (each consumes an average 500 gallons a trip).  "I got my job by bugging Jim Roland (Trainmaster at the time) every time I'd come over, and I guess he finally got sick of hearing from me,"  recounts Truman.  Roland had hired off the SP where he had worked as a brakeman.
	Terry pulls the power and first string off #3 track, out of the yard around the wye to the south into the OC&E Interchange, shoves back to make a pin with the rear cut on #2 track, then starts to pull south again.  It's only a few miles from the yard on Washburn Way to the Sort Yard across town but it's all at 10mph.  Between Hillyard and Laverne streets, the Logger leaves home rails, first through BN's "new yard," then across SP's Oregon Division mainline and back to BN.
	By 6:30am, they're headed across the Klamath River on the former GN liftspan, through Whiteline Yard on the west side, which was GN's original terminus for the area.  Past D. G. Shelter and through the middle of Columbia Plywood's plant, the loads slowly move onto Weyerhaeuser property underneath the U. S. 97 overpass.  Though BN switches the plant, Weyerhaeuser owns the track.  A three-man section crew (assigned by Weyerhaeuser and not on OC&E's payroll) spends their day puttering around the complex doing maintenance with a 1928 Skagit motorcar, with a 4-wheel tool flat attached.  An identical Skagit works out of Sprague River (it's now stored at Sycan).
	Hugging the shoreline on first the River Track, then the Inside Balloon, Terry pulls the train far into the mill complex to clear, then backs all 75 cars around the Balloon to drop them one 14-car cut at a time into the six stubs of the Sort Yard, around 7am.  Occasional loads of white fir are shoved through #6 track to the Merchandise Yard for unloading closer to the plywood plant, their eventual destination.
	The power pulls up clear of the Sort Yard to wait a few hours while huge roving unloaders, called stackers, go to work picking off 15,000 board feet of logs in one bite, or twenty "cunits," 60 tons from each car at a time.  The stackers are also seeing their last days here.  They will be retired along with the OC&E.
	Car inspector Bill Pierce appears, oilcan and journalbox bar in hand to walk the stub tracks.  Half the steel-frame loggers ride on friction-bearing trucks, requiring frequent attention from Bill as he also checks centerplates, centerpins and handrails for damage or shifting.  Noticing a car out of line, he calls over one of the stackers by radio.  Its 15' tongs are dropped level with the car and a gentle nudge from the operator brings the car back center.  Bill still bad-orders the car, but at least it will make it safely back to Sycan for repairs.
	Unloading is complete by 11am.  Terry backs down into #6 track for the first cut, pulling up past the balloon switch, then kicking one of the bad orders into the clear.  These will be placed on the headend, after all six sections are assembled.  Just before noon, all's together and the string of empties are crawling down the old main to await clearance from the BN Yardmaster before crossing back over to the OC&E Yard in east Klamath.  The BN Yardmaster controls OC&E moves through foreign territory, calling the SP by phone for clearance.
	This can be a long wait, depending on how busy the SP and BN are with their own affairs (they run up to 30 trains a day through town).  The first radio message from BN is "I'll get back to you in an hour or so."  But a window appears, and after 15 minutes, Terry's on the move again, back through Whiteline and across the bridge.  Another wait at the SP crossover while BN's train #682 leaves their yard to enter the SP main, on its way to Bend.
	By 1pm, the Logger is crossing over, down through BN #1 track, onto the BN wye and back onto home turf.  Through its own wye above Hillyard Street, the train heads east on the main, pulling up to the steel bridge (with the year "1898" stamped out on the upper crossplates) crossing an irrigation canal above Summers Lane, then reversing the moves of the morning.  (Since OC&E didn't open operations until 19 years after that date, best guess is the bridge was purchased second-hand from Southern Pacific.  The construction and lettering match SP bridges found throughout Oregon.)  One cut down #2, pull the pin at the middle caboose, then with the power push the second cut down #3 track to tie up at the service area just west of the OC&E offices.  Luke scampers across and hooks an air line from the power to the separate cut.  This keeps pressure in the reservoirs and saves 30 to 45 minutes pumping up the train next time out.  It's 2:00pm and the crew goes home.

*          *

The Last Logs From Bly

	The morning of Sunday, April 29 is bright, clear and below freezing.   A few rail enthusiasts have already begun to gather, cameras and camcorders draped across their chests like bandoliers.  The sun's barely up by 5:30am but Luke's been on hand since two, firing up the four 16-567BC diesels in preparation for the 6am call of the last Bly Turn.  By 6:10, a little tardy, all the crew's arrived: Preston, Peterson, Monteith, Gosney and Berg.  The headend crew boards, pulls onto the main, then backs onto the rear section for an air test.
	Larry Monteith sits by the crewshack making his train list, recording car numbers as the 40' and 50' skeleton cars slowly pass, 20 tons apiece empty.  Jamie Berg stands guard on the far side, insuring the double rollby called for in the rulebook for all trains departing the yard.  One caboose is sandwiched in 40 cars back, and marks the train's division for crossing over the switchbacks on Bly Mountain.
	Water cars used to ride just behind the locomotives on all Woods Line trains, and just ahead of the caboose on the OC&E, a requirement for years by the U. S. Forest Service until OC&E received a waiver.  Under the waiver conditions, a section car had to run behind each train with a 75 gallon watercan to put out any blazes set by the passing train.  OC&E had even run special water trains for the Forest Service to supply field pumper fire trucks, most recently in 1979 to a large fire at Squaw Flat.  But with the passage of such restrictions, the only special placement now is an idler car just ahead of the rear caboose for crew protection.
	The week before, a rancher's prize breeding bull had wandered through a fence around MP46 and ended up underneath the power.  It had almost put the locomotives on the ground, breaking several ties on a short, squat trestle in the process.  So Luke radios the head end with a slow order: "10mph where the cows are, MP45.8 to MP46.2."   By 6:30 the Turn's pulling out of town and easing across the 1898 bridge at Summers Lane, off South 6th.  The elevation here is a shade over 4,200 feet, but not for long.  Soon the locomotives are in Run 4 for the rising three mile grade to the vertical telltales at Hager, 100 feet higher than the Yard.  The telltales insure the conductor on inbound trains that no logs are hanging off which might foul the bridge at Summers Lane.  Outbound, the Logger clears them at 6:45am, and rumbles past Hager's modest 400' siding.
	The line flattens out for the run to Olene (MP 8.4 at 7am), marked by an even shorter 200' siding, and then curves out of the Klamath Basin through Lost River Gap.  The line passes on the north side, where the first railroad survey crew picked its way through in 1855.  The Logger drops slightly into what's known as "The Parachute," crossing over Highway 140, which is lined with picture-takers.  Here the grade stiffens a bit for two miles of 1%, up to what was once Swan Lake Junction, just under 4,400 feet elevation.  A 1.84 mile spur had run off here to the north for Swan Lake, as far as it reached toward a proposed destination of Antelope Valley.  The branch was abandoned in September of 1929.
	Through Swedes Cut and another flat run across the open fields of Pine Flat, past Moyina siding (1,560' long), up a gentle pull under Highway 140, and another drop through Dairy at 7:20am, past the wye.   Here a half-mile stub track runs east to a grain elevator, all that remains of another abbreviated branch, 6.7 mile to Bonanza.  Only 1.57 miles were built prior to abandonment in the 1930's.
	Now the line starts working its way up the valley past Hildebrand (MP28) on a ruling grade of 2.06%.  It eases up around MP29 but it's still work for these GE/EMD hybrids all the way to the top.  The line skirts the east side of Squaw Flat along the base of the mountain before climbing first left through Burgoene Cut, then the right-hand loop called Squaw Curve before heading back on itself a hundred feet or so above before entering the West Switchback.
	At 8am the units pull through onto the inside tailtrack as the head man drops off to uncouple behind the first caboose.  With the rear end tied down, Terry pulls ahead to end of track to clear the east wye switch.  By 8:10am with Truman Gosney guarding from the caboose platform, Terry shoves backward at 10mph across the 4,825' summit toward the East Switchback, just under a mile away.  As they drop down the 1+% grade, Truman checks the east switch alignment and Terry starts shoving as the first cut enters the inside tailtrack heading upgrade until the locomotives reach the "Fouling Point" sign stuck into the uphill embankment.
	By 8:20, the first cut's secured and the light engines head back west for the remainder of the empties.  The moves repeat, this time pushing up the outside tailtrack on the east end to clear and secure.  The power runs down past the switch, then backs into the first, inward string before drifting downgrade toward Sprague River until the rear of the cut is past the switchback.  Here Larry has cut off and tied down the caboose before reaching the fouling point.  Another shove back to the outside for a joint with the second section, then head downgrade again until the caboose is on the main.  Realign the switch, let the second caboose drift down from the inside tailtrack onto the rear, make your air test and in less than an hour since cresting the grade, the Logger's on its way.  Twelve moves in all; it seems so easy.
	The descending grade is a steady curving 1.5% the five miles into the town of Sprague River.  Only dynamic brakes hold the 1,500 ton train easily in check, pulling 400 amps on the gauge (1,100 to 1,200 is the "danger" range).  Here Terry kicks the dynamics loose and whistles on through, onto 100lb track.  It's a sloping easy rise now, across the broad Sprague River valley through Beatty, safely past the "cow slow order" by 9:50am.
	Just past the Sycan switch where Weyerhaeuser's Woods Line splits off to the left, the valley narrows into a cut, with the track to the north of the river, Highway 140 on the south.  The train makes its way through patchy oak and scrub brush, the five-chime horns of 7602 heard echoing off the gully walls, accompanied by disturbed sounds of surprised, bellowing cattle.  Safely through another herd around MP57, the Logger enters one last broad plain, where the heavy rail runs out and speed drops to 10mph for the final, 68lb approach to Bly and end of track at 10:50am: MP64.29.
	Here at Bly, empties are spotted for log reloading from trucks that descend from throughout the area.  Chip cars and flats for loading finished lumber used to vary the Logger's consist when the Bly Mill was still running, but since its closure about 1985, only log racks are to be seen, at least through this day.
	The yard is laid out with a wye splitting the main, tail to the southwest.  Southeast from the wye runs a siding, with another log transfer track, "the jammer," running parallel before tapering away and ending off to the northeast.  West of the wye is what's known as the "Mercher Segment Loading," track B-2, on the northwest side.  A 1,100 foot pass, known as B-1 runs between the two, with a 750' stub off the other side.
	The locomotives pull up the main or the pass, depending on where cars were left the previous trip, stopping 15 cars from the end of track.  Today it's the pass.  The rear man walks forward to make a cut 38 cars up.  The front end is pulled clear of a road crossing in the yard, and the power cut off to run back down the main.  The rear cut is coupled onto and shoved back out the west end of the yard to the end of B-1 track, which sits north of the main.
	The power, with empties still in tow, heads into B-1 and couples onto a string of loads.  Pulling empties and shoving loads, the crew swaps one for the other, pushing the loads toward end of track and cutting off the empties on B-1.  The loads on the jammer are then pulled out and swapped with the empties off B-1.  One loaded cut is pulled westward, eased back to pick up the first caboose, then the second set of loads.  The entire train is run westward, the rear caboose picked up and another air test made.  Just under two hours, eighteen moves and 6,400 tons of logs are ready for the four-hour trip to the mill.
	Bob Coombes has driven his hi-railer up by highway from town, and while the crew assembles the train, Bob is interviewed by a local television station reporter.  She asks the expected questions, about the effect of timber supply on the closure, and why the line is so special.  Bob explains about it being the last logging train in Oregon, the double-tailed switchback and some of the history of the line.  She comments on the unusual number of photographers moving about the yard, and asks if only the railfans will mourn the passing of the OC&E.   Previously quick in answer with a firm voice, Bob hesitates.  The moment seems to hang endlessly, broken finally by his softened reply.  "No."  He glances across the yard.  "Not just them.  I still haven't quite accepted the fact that this is done yet.  That's the hard part."
	At 12:50pm with "Pete" Peterson at the throttle, the Logger whistles off.  The railfans start their westward jerky leapfrog drives, briefly touching down at spots they'd been at just hours before.  Ten miles west alongside the Sprague River, more a languid stream here moving out into ample fields to the west, one rail enthusiast is perched on an outcropping above the OC&E, tripod and cameras at the ready.
	He watches billowed cumulus clouds carried into a haphazard hide 'n seek with the spring sun.   They move a mottled light across the high arid hills, making suspicious where the shadows will fall along the line the Logger will soon traverse.  The air seems sweetly crisp and the country at sleep.  The sky  quickly pushes rash gusts of wind ripping down through unseen paths, then as suddenly it's quiet again.  A quick breeze hums through the sage, carrying along a faint ghostly chant of 16-cylinder 567's from over the rise to the east.  Three sealbeam headlights spark through the far edge of spring growth, and the serpentine Logger skirts its way around curves alongside the river.  A bright spot of yellow against the full color of the land marks the midway caboose, a somewhat solitary symbol of the anachronism OC&E has come to be.
	The 7603 leads past now, the loaded flats lumbering by beneath, 40 cars, first caboose, 34 cars, the final caboose.  By Beatty at 1:20pm, the switchback at 2:15pm, one cut, then the second, a mirror pattern of this morning's maneuvers.  Air test at 3pm and depart in dynamics, 700 amps, with six to eight pounds of air set.
	The switchback is cloudcovered until the first cut is shoved across, when the overcast relents and sun streams down on the mountaintop.  The light holds until the Logger begins its long drop downgrade, through Squaw Curve and Burgoene Cut.  The final caboose clears Bly Mountain Pass bathed by a brilliant sun, only to move off into paler light.   The four units curve out of sight out across the Flat where Terry kicks the air off, allowing the dynamics to carry the Logger on through Horton, then Hildebrand.  The wind picks up and it begins to rain.
	The Logger slips by Dairy around 4pm, Olene at 4:20, and shadows are stretching across the Klamath Basin, seeming to gather the old Logger into a darkening fold.  Around the Washburn Street wye onto the BN Interchange, then shove back twice, #2 track, and double over into #3 for a 5pm tieup.   Fans gather around the power, Pete, Terry and Truman pose, then retreat to the crewshack.  One young man passes, muttering, "And so another little bit of America's industrial capacity dies.  Film at 11."  Truman spends a few minutes hassling Luke about wanting another OC&E switchkey.  Luke protests that he already gave Truman two and he won't get any more.  The two disappear into the office and a few minutes later Truman ambles off into the twilight cheerfully swinging his new acquisition.
	Soon most the fans are gone, driving back to Stockton and Fresno, to Portland and Boring, Seattle and Spokane.   Finally it's just Luke, hooking up the air to the unattached string of cars, checking the oil and water on the power, and it's almost all over.  By 6pm the Yard is left to the idling power.
	Monday's the final trip across to the Sort Yard.  A final cleanup run is set for May Day to Sycan where remaining rolling stock and power will be set out and locked up.

Last Trip to Sycan

	Tuesday, May 1 arrives bereft of the weekend rail warriors that marked Sunday's trip, though a few hardies still gather to mark the occasion.  Mark Jones, a young trainman from Oakland off Amtrak #14 arrives in a beatup Rambler, electing to spend his 9-1/2 hour layover pursuing the OC&E rather than rest.   Commitment lies deep.  The call is later than usual, 8am, as there won't be the 2-hour trip from Beatty to Bly.   Since Sunday, Luke's used the power to pluck OC&E's former SP caboose 2006 off the spur behind the office and tagged it onto the middle caboose.  The 2006, riding on friction bearings, is strictly a spare due to its longer length and hasn't been used in several years.
	All the crew's on time today, even early, and by calltime we're moving out of #3 through the yard throat and across Washburn Way.  The power lineup is reversed from Sunday, due to the trip to the Sort Yard: 7603 leads, with 7601, 7605 and 7602 trailing.
	Conductor Larry Monteith takes up his post at the crewshack as we pull past, trainsheet in hand checking car numbers.  The throttle's in Run 2 but Engineer Terry Preston leaves the lead unit in isolation, so we seem to be idling along in gear.  "I can't stand the noise," explains Terry, settling into the cab, packing his grip away, one ear always to the radio.
	Crew talk over the air is always brief, a shorthand built up through years of service together.  "Five," we hear; Terry calls back, "five," and drops the throttle a notch. "Two," then a  "That'll do,"  and Terry hits the air.  "Back," it calls, and Terry's in reverse and moving even as he responds, "Back."  We make our pin at 8:17, and it's "Head end, Turn, set 'em up."  By 8:22, we hear Larry's radio call from the rear, "85 lbs.  All right, one last time."  Terry pushes the throttle into Run 3, and our 74 cars are moving east.
	Terry's a peanut fanatic, and as the shells fly from the window, he and Truman Gosney start to share stories from their years on the OC&E.  "You really would have gotten to see some fun stuff with the old guys," says Truman, like how they threw snowballs at the section crews, or the night a hotbox flared up and one conductor "rode the car from MP 22 to 19 packing snow in the journal."  There was another conductor, Terry relates.  "He had a Black Lab he always brought along.  One day the Lab falls off the caboose.  The conductor jumps down, scoops up the Lab in his arms and starts running after the train.  (The brakeman) was standing on the back laughing so hard he couldn't call Terry on the radio to tell him to stop."
	We cross Reeder Road, and recollections turn somber. Here a car once tried to beat Terry to the crossing and lost; one person died, and another at a different time on the same crossing.  It's hard to imagine a railroad with a 25mph top speed being lethal, but four have lost their life at OC&E crossings over the years.  It's a sober reminder that respect is due any train, regardless of appearance or speed.
	Talk turns back toward the humorous, remembering a pair of "borrowed engineers off the Milwaukee," who couldn't cope with a couple of loaded gons in the rock quarry.   "Their very first trip, they shove them all the way out the back!  They were from Washington," laughs Terry.  "It must be something in the water!"
	In Run 4, we split the telltales at Hager and sunlight floods the Klamath Basin as the train crosses past Pine Grove and Olene, on into Lost River Gap.  Dropping through the Parachute, it's into Run 8 for the next two miles to the top past the old Swan Lake Junction.  The cab is quiet enough for normal conversation, but a short trip back along the walkway lets one immediately experience this powerful combat with the grade.  We're still making 20mph but the last three units are almost screaming, smoke pouring from stubby twin stacks.
	Curving through Swedes Cut we enter Pine Flat, dropping gently down to Moyina.  Terry eases back to Run 4 and starts to tell a joke about the brakeman who went into a bar, quickly interrupted by Truman shouting "No, no, it was an engineer!"  Up to Run 6 for Dairy Hill under Highway 140 pulling Dairy Hill, then back to Run 4.
	Approaching Hildebrand at 9:25am, Truman points out John Bodner's ranch on the left. "His father homesteaded, and John still  harvests this field with horse-drawn teams.  His father died when John was 16, and he ran the whole ranch from then on.  He'd let us come up here to hunt.  Sometimes there'd be logs that was kinda' dry on top of the cars, that would work their way loose.  Now if one was hangin' loose we'd have to stop somewhere and kick it off, just for safety's sake, of course.  And John's place was a good safe spot to do that..."
	Across fields lined with irrigation sprinklers, speed is a leisurely 25mph and Terry pulls down the airhorn lever for Hildebrand Road.  A few minutes later we split the earth dam at MP24, just before Horton, and cross a broad pond bisected by the roadbed.  "Named after the Horton Ranch," calls Truman.  Terry explains it's now owned by TrendWest, a large timber-related holding company, and a discussion starts up about changes from family-owned property in the region, and the loss of control to more indifferent corporations.
	Now the Logger begins the long pull to the switchbacks.  At 9:33am we pass Horton (MP26), and Terry shoves the throttle to Run 8 as the Logger moves onto the ruling grade of 2.06%.  By MP27 the train is grinding down toward 10mph, and he sacrifices his serenity for continued momentum, kicking 7603 on-line.  Conversation becomes useless as the 16 cylinders rev toward 800rpm.
	Speed picks up marginally as the grade momentarily slackens on the big curve around Calico Springs and our final assault on Bly Mountain begins.  Passing a string of abandoned skeleton cars on the right, Truman points and yells "That's another one of Terry's!  Probably four years back.  They were long skeletons that Sycan built."  Terry elaborates.  "They would shim the couplers to keep them even, and a coupler dropped about ten cars back going uphill.  The headend took off and the rear of the train just jackknifed those cars clear off the track.  They were too heavy to get out with no crane, so there they stay!"
	We climb along the base of Bly Mountain toward Burgoene Cut, which Terry discloses was named for an SP engineer of the same name who worked the line before OC&E's purchase.
	"Burgoene had a habit of just sailing westbound off this hill.  He didn't always care to do any 20mph (the speed limit for loaded log trains).  Burgoene would get through Squaw Curve and barely into the next cut, and wham!  There'd be those old wood bellies scattered all over looking like matchsticks.  I was on the work train once to clean things up.  I came over the top (from Sycan) and saw five, maybe six cars down there.  'Hey,' I think, 'piece of cake!'  But we'd keep pulling logs off, and here there'd be yet another stack of kindling.  He must have smashed close to two dozen cars that time.  So we named it Burgoene Cut."
	As we begin to turn back on ourselves, the last cars tagged with caboose 2007 swing around the broad lower loop a hundred feet directly below, following us up past yet a third pair of abandoned skeleton cars scattered along the right-of-way.  At 10am we're crossing into the west tailtracks, headed up the inside.  As the cut is being made, Terry throws the isolation switch for the lead unit before we pull up, then begin the shove across the switchback, rear brakeman Jamie Berg riding the platform of the middle cabooses, now momentarily our rear.
	All's going well as the units approach the east switch.   Suddenly Jamie's shouting on the radio to "Plug it!" and Terry throws the train into emergency.  Even at 5mph the quick stop is enough to throw one off-balance.  Radio chatter back and forth reveals someone has thrown the switch into the gravel quarry stub, plugged the points with rocks and twisted the switchstand back to appear normal.  The first caboose successful rode over the derail, but the heavier ex-SP 2006 wasn't so lucky, breaking the derail and dropping its rear truck into the gravel.
	Conductor Larry Monteith is on the west side with a portable radio that won't reach over Bly Mountain.   Terry, Truman and Jamie briefly confer by radio about their predicament, deciding to stash their first cut and run back west to see what Larry wants to do.  Just then, Luke calls over the air, driving up to Sycan from Klamath Falls.  He tells the crew they need to be back at the switchback by 1pm from Sycan for a picture-taking session.  "We'll do our best," replies Terry, "just as soon as we have your train back on the track."  Truman cuts off the power and Terry runs back west for the final string.
	Back in the gravel quarry, an old beatup Volkswagen "bug," drives up and C. W. Rogers and his wife climb out, videocamera in hand, to survey the scene.   The Rogers have lived at the east edge of Swedes Cut, just west of Moyina since 1939.  Though witness to almost fifty years of OC&E operations, this is the first time they've foregone their daily chores to come up the Switchback and watch this unique operation.  Mr. Rogers talks of the days of doubleheaded AC1's, the transition from steam to diesel and shares vignettes from half a century living with the Logger.
	"The trains would always drift past us before whistling for the crossing," recalled Rogers.  "Then they got some new guy who would whistle all the way through the cut, raising hell with my cows.  I was serving on jury duty with the OC&E general manager at the time, and I told him, 'I got a 30.06 by my door and the next time that guy blasts through my farm, I'll shoot that damn whistle off.'  Well, next trip down, all I hear is a little, polite 'toot toot!'  Never had another problem after that."
	By 10:30am Terry and Truman have brought the second cut across with Larry on the rear, who can now inspect the situation first-hand.  Jamie suggests leaving the cabooses there, but Larry knows management wants a last run to be just that.  Another radio conference with Luke and the section crew at Sprague River brings a decision to rerail now.   Foreman Leland Young and his two helpers are to drive up with rerailing frogs.   
	They arrive at 11am by road in a hi-railer, and hot on their heels comes Luke in his CarryAll.  The frogs are hauled into place, one on each side and laid over the rail.  But the outward wheels are just beyond the reach of one rerail, so Leland lays another farther downgrade.  The first frog will pull the truck toward the rail enough to ride up the second frog onto the track.  At 11:25, the frogs are set and all by radio, Terry eases four units with 40 cars upgrade through four curves to a gentle pin on the errant caboose.   Almost imperceptibly, he rolls forward until "On the rail!" crackles over the radio.  A quick stop to insure all's attached and intact, he then drifts down with the cut, cabooses in tow.  Leland gathers up crew and tools to head back to Sprague River.  As he leaves the mountain, Leland radios a bit of advice to the crew:  "We've collected the switchlocks from here to Sycan, so you might keep your eyes open."  "Well!  Thanks for mentioning it, Leland," radios Terry.
	Another ten minutes and the train has been gathered together, the two cabooses coasted off the inside spur onto the train, air test made and we're headed downgrade at 20mph with the dynamics in the fourth position.  Truman calls back to kid the rear brakeman about the incident:  "Hey, Jamie!  Was that an overtime move?"
	By noon the units lean through the right-hand curve at Sprague River past a small maintenance yard where the Skagit speeder stands with three small flats heaped with a melange of equipment that will no longer play their part keeping the line operating.   Leland calls Larry on the radio to let him know they'll follow the train into Sycan.
	A half-mile out of town, Terry slows for Sprague River siding, where 30 empty log cars are picked up.  Moving again across the high desert valley the cars now seem to stretch to infinity as we round one long curve, across a tangent, then another sweeping curve, the first this broad we've encountered since leaving town five hours earlier.   Another 20 cars at Beatty are picked up, where a water tower from steam days stood until just a few years back.  "It was about the time (Jim) Roland left," reminisces Truman.  "Someone burned the thing down."  Out of Beatty, 124 cars are stretched out across the desert, over a mile long.  "I think that's the most we've ever hauled across here," says Terry.
	It's only a few hundred feet before the train leaves the main, moving left toward Sycan Yard.  The rule book says OC&E trains must call Sycan Shop for permission to enter, but everyone knows the cleanup train is the day's only activity.  Terry calls on the radio for clearance, quickly answering himself in falsetto, "This is Sycan -- enter down the main."   Truman chides Terry that the section foreman hasn't radioed his clearance;  "Come on, Truman, I can only do two voices!  Besides, you know Leland.  He's always in the clear."
	Terry slowly pulls through Sycan Yard as Truman rides the running boards to make sure all airhoses are connected on the cut of cars alongside, on the KLB track.  They'll have to shove back on this string to store part of what's been brought up the line.  Terry pulls through the yard onto the Woods Line a half-mile and by 1:40 we're shoving to the outside track, then doubling the last string inside.
	Everything secured, Terry is unhurried bringing the units back down the main to the Shop.  He pulls past the three cabooses, picks them up and then runs in alongside the shop building.  Jamie cuts off the 7602, then joins Pete, who's taking the 7604 out toward the gravel pit east of town to pick up four orphan airdumps.  The unit's fresh from its 90-day inspection, and will sustain switching operations in town well into the summer without another inspection swap.  Bob Coombes has petitioned the FRA for permission to run on hour meters, since a week's switching will only equal about ten hours' use, but no word back has been received as yet.
	Terry and Truman cross over the yard in front of the diesel house to exchange small talk with the section gang from Sprague River.  The doors are open today, and the stubnose of 311 can be seen peering from inside the converted logging truck shop.  Randy Wagner and Ralph Bermisdarfer are there from the section crew, along with Leland.  Steve Dumont talks about what he does now "depends on what day it is."  He hired out first with the SP in 1972, then with the OC&E in 1975, working mostly as an engineer into the 1980's.  He served the line as an engineer last in October, then fired until January before going on the section crew.  Terry later explains that Steve is one with great dedication to the line, "always hanging on.  He'd get laid off, go work somewhere for awhile, but always came back."  
	Bob drives in at 2:40pm and crosses over to the group, remarking how thorough the gang has been in securing the line.  "I stopped at Sprague River to make a call and there's no phone.  There isn't even a damn wall left!"  "Well," drawls Leland, "you said not to leave anything behind except rail material."
	Cliff Carter hostles the 7602 away from the shop and positions it near the fuel rack for the trip back to Klamath Falls.  By 2:45, Pete's back from the quarry making good speed through the yard, shoving the airdumps toward the balloon track. Jamie, cowboy hat firmly in place, rides the back of the cut like a bronc buster charging out a rodeo chute.  After a minute or two they're back, Pete couples the 7604 to the rear of 7602, and everyone in the yard gathers around the front of the lead locomotive to pose a "classic" roundhouse portrait.  It's brief, but one can almost see the bonds between these men tugged tightly one last time, then fall and slip away.  They shuffle away to their cars and trucks, and to close up the shop.
	Larry's asked for the privilege of running back to town, a surprise to Terry since Larry hardly ever wants to run.  "At least it's not Jamie," says Truman.  "He thinks this track is good for 40mph!"  So Terry, Truman and Pete take up positions in trailing unit 7604.  Terry double-checks to make sure it's in isolation.  Soon we're swinging around west out of Sycan toward home at 20mph, double our inbound speed.  There's no longer any need to reline the switch and the units bounce on through onto the main.
	Larry throttles the units promptly out onto the broad valley floor to 30mph, dropping back to 10mph for the "cow slow order" at MP46.2, then up again to 30, then 33mph.  Pete and Terry exchange looks, and Terry observes, "The speed limit's 25 out here.  But then, I guess it really doesn't matter any more."  They talk on about speed, the roadbed and the changes over the years. "When I hired out," says Pete, "it was 30mph with empties to Sprague River, then 20 up the hill."
	They speak about the closure and recent timber sales, how recent bids have been as high as $540 a thousand board feet, triple last year's prices and almost double the appraised value.  The light engines flush a small herd of antelope from a trackside gully and as they bound away, Terry points toward the stands of trees ringing the north side of the valley.
	"Weyerhaeuser lost those in bidding to Roseburg Lumber a few years back.  If they'd gotten those, we'd still be in business, maybe a couple of more years.  But Weyerhaeuser had never had to really bid for timber before, 'cause they'd mostly logged off their own lands.  They lost it really big."  Truman joins in.  "These last loads we've taken out of Bly, some of that's out of Prospect Creek.  They last logged that in 1977.  That'll give you an idea how small this stuff is getting.  When I went to work here, it only took two, maybe three logs to fill a car, they were that big around.  Now it's all second growth.  Granted, the stakes on the wood bellies were only two-thirds as high back then, but still...,"  his voice trailing off.
	Terry turns again to Pete.  "You know, it still feels like you have a job.  Like I'm in the mode of 'Well, we're going to shut down awhile and then we'll be back.'  But then it hits me -- I'll never be doing this again.  I'll never see this place again.  You get a sense of what it must be like to retire."
	They measure the passage of time and events on the OC&E by those who worked the line.   Terry and Pete are the only ones left who have worked straight through without layoff since 1975, though Larry has been in service most of that time.  Pete talks about Paul Arnett, who worked from 1926 until retiring as engineer in 1973.  With his son Richard, two cousins and an uncle, Arnett had led a family that accumulated 182 years of service with the OC&E.  Steam, Pete decided, ended in 1955 or 56 (it was 1955), "cause that's when Grady Sanders hired out.  He wouldn't take a call because he didn't want to have to qualify (on steam).  There were only a few steam runs left then.  Dick Snyder was the last steam locomotive engineer."
	At different times, crew members speak of the disparate kind of relationship between workers and supervision that existed because of the timber orientation of the OC&E.
	"Management, those guys have always been loggers.  They never really understood railroading," recollected one employee.  "I remember once when (Neil) McKellips went in and told them all the switches needed replacing and frogs would have to be purchased.  The head office guy tells McKellips, 'Well, we have a machine shop, can't they make them?'  McKellips just stares for a moment, and then patiently explains. 'Frogs are an integrally cast piece.  They make them in Pittsburgh.  You buy frogs.  You don't make them.'  It just always seemed that way whenever you went over there, across the river (to Weyerhaeuser's Klamath Falls headquarters)."  The railroading side would "humor along the loggers" as best they could to keep things running on the OC&E.
	As far as labor agreements, yes, says one, the crews always tried to work with management, but it wasn't always "just over 12 hours."  There were more than enough times crews turned in 13- and 14-hour days, "without getting much back.  But it was the attitude that was important to maintain," comments a crewman, that "we always felt it was our railroad.  We kept it running and we did our best."
	Larry has the 7602 in Run 4 across the valley, sliding into Run 6 out of Sprague River at 3:20pm past MP36 for the climb up Bly Mountain.  The roadbed is well ballasted and smooth, good drainage and well tamped.  "It's amazing what Leland has done with so few men and so little budget," says Terry.  "This is really first-class track, and a real tribute to the commitment these men show to the railroad."
	Soon the lead unit's pulling 400 amps as Larry takes the hill at 22, 23, then 24mph, quite a change from a loaded trip west at 10mph.  By 3:30 we're past the eastside switch and begin backing west.  It's well past Luke's scheduled 1pm photo shoot, and no official-looking camera people are to be seen.  He's there just the same, parked at the west end monitoring switch positions for our safe passage.  No hour to cross the mountain this time; in 8 minutes, we're lined out of the west tailtrack and headed downgrade.  Larry shuns the dynamics for awhile, preferring to play the engine air as we curve around below the switchback and head through a broad left-hand curve that cups an expansive meadow, a pond shimmering there in the afternoon light.  Here he pulls through, then backs upgrade around the corner for one last photo run.
	Everyone collected, we pick up speed on the descending 2.06% grade, and Larry goes into dynamics at MP29, running the meter up to 400 amps until MP27, when he kicks them out and goes back to straight air.  Terry grabs the radio and calls up to Larry.  "Hey, a bit of slack action back here," he cracks, teasing Larry about all the times he'd complained about Terry's train handling.  "I finally got you!" comes back the reply.  We drift through Horton at 4pm, then into Run 4 across the plains to Dairy.
	Terry marks a spot on the line and proceeds with another tale.  "Back in 1979 I was coming west through here, two M-K's and a slug, with the 7605 trailing," he says.  "It was the only unit that didn't have "tattletale" equipment, you know, the Black Box, and all the equipment that goes with it."  He lifts up a floorplate to reveal a maze of wiring and monitor boxes that ride between there and the front truck.
	"We're rolling along, and I look back to see sparks and smoke rolling out of 7605.  I bring everything to a quick stop, yelling 'I got a fire back here,' to the brakeman.  'Grab some fire extinguishers!'  So the brakeman goes back and radios 'You got more problems than that.'  I go back and here's a rail sticking six feet out of the cab of the unit.  We'd broken a rail and it had come up right through the floorboards, since there was no 'tattletale' equipment to deflect it.  I can just imagine if the brakeman had been riding back there -- it went within inches of the seat!  They hauled it back to Sycan, patched it up, and it was back in service within a matter of weeks," he concludes.
	As we approach Dairy, the crew gets a bit quieter.  Up front, Larry gazes out into the lowering light, across the farms and fields while Jamie just stares ahead down the track.  We round Lost River Gap, whistle through the Olene crossing and enter the Klamath Basin one last time.  Larry rolls past the telltales at Hager at 4:50, but there are no loads to measure for clearance this trip, no call from the caboose, "All clear."
	 Luke calls on the radio that he's already lined us into #3 as we whine past the State Highway shops at Altamont Drive five minutes later, using the extended range dynamics to slow our approach to Washburn.  At 5pm sharp Larry drifts through the yard throat down #3 and brings the units to a final halt.  As we climb down, Luke's already clambering aboard, checking the oil and water, and finally shutting the power down.
	In the crew shack, Bob Coombes tells the crew his best guesses for operations.  Over the next few months, they should ring up Luke to find out when they'll be called to switch WITCO, since schedules are uncertain at best.  There's been talk about bringing all the cabooses out for "a final run,"  a chance for the employees' families and invited locals to make a last trek up to Bly and back.  But nothing's for certain.
	Terry, who proudly owns the only complete set of OC&E switch keys in existence (and loves to goad Truman about it), says he saw the "writing on the wall" a few years ago. He and his wife went back to college to earn primary and secondary teaching certificates, and will soon move to Texas where they can teach while earning their certification.  Pete's not sure what he'll do, "but I guess I should make my mind up rather sudden, shouldn't I?"  Jamie will break and train horses fulltime on the family ranches, while Truman will run a second-hand store, the U & I Trading Post, in Klamath Falls with his spouse.
	Larry will try to get on with the BN.  Jeff Brace, a BN brakeman, worked with OC&E for 14-1/2 years before "going over" last year.  He reports that rumored new traffic agreements between Santa Fe and Union Pacific may result in another 80 to 90 cars a day in BN traffic through the Bieber Gateway.  Two, possibly three full crews may be hired by summer to cope with the upswing, one for the south end to Bieber and two for the trip to Bend.
	Weyerhaeuser has hired a consultant to study disposition of the line and make recommendations.  "We haven't arrived at a final decision," says Dave Peterson.  "All we've said is we're not going to haul logs anymore."  He predicts some determination may be made by January of 1991 on the future of the OC&E.  There's been interest expressed from people in the region connected with the Great Western Railroad Museum, formerly based at McCloud, to secure the OC&E as a tourist operation, but Weyerhaeuser officials are guarded in commenting on such an outlook.
	One loser is likely to be the regional motorist.  It takes two log trucks to match one rail car load.  Shifting from rail to road may add as many as 400 trucks a week on the narrow, twisting highways in the area.  But that's a "social cost," not a corporate expense, and one that doesn't figure in "the bottom line."
	For the railfan, though, there's still time to catch one of the yellow M-K's wandering across Washburn Way down toward the BN Interchange to switch WITCO, though OC&E's tenure grows shakier every day.  However, one question has finally been settled.  Oregon's Last Logger really has made its final run.	

-30-

	The author would like to expressly thank the following for their commitment of time, interest and cooperation:  OC&E Vice-President and General Manager Bob Coombes; Carman Robert "Luke" Lucas; Weyerhaeuser's Klamath Falls Administrative and Finance Director Dave Peterson; and OC&E Executive Vice-President Dennis McClure, particularly for permission to join the OC&E crew for the last ride to Sycan.  A special thanks goes to the talented men who shared so much from their lives on the OC&E and kept it going on a daily basis, including Terry Preston and M. R. "Pete" Peterson, engineers; Truman Gosney, head brakeman; Leland Young, section foreman; Larry Monteith, conductor; and Jamie Berg, rear brakeman.   The collaboration of Lisa Silva in developing and printing photographs is greatly appreciated.  Historical research was drawn from the Pacific Railway Journal (1957), Klamath Historical Museum, OC&E corporate records, and the Pacific Northwest Chapter, NRHS 1983 OC&E Trip Guide.   Permission from John Signor to use information contained in his book Rails in the Shadow of Mount Shasta, re-released in 1983 by Darwin Publications, is gratefully acknowledged.

Biography

	Donovan Michael Gray, 42, works as Planning and Information Director for the Arts Council of Southern Oregon, based in Medford, where he also directs the Western Arts Management Institute.  With a railroading father and arts reporter mother, his life has been one long stretch between trains and cultural pursuits.  Before travelling nationally with leading dance and theatre companies during the late 1960's and early 70's, he worked with the Great Northern Railway out of Seattle, his home town.  There, his father ran Northwest Rail Excursions for many years, including Northern Pacific's 2626's final trip, the famous Timken-equipped 4-8-4 "The Four Aces."  Donovan honors that family heritage with his license plate, "NP-2626."  This is his first CTC Board byline, though his work has appeared in Locomotive Railway & Preservation, Trains and Pacific Rail News.