GARY GOES WEST, AGAIN, WAY WEST THIS TIME

after lunch we moved a short distance to the oregon heritage rail center, home of 4449, the only surviving southern pacific 4-8-4 GS-4 steam locomotive, which does operate, in fact it will be steamed up in october for a yard shoot by lerro productions if anyone is interested.



engine 197, a 4-6-2, pacific from the oregon railroad and navigation company, also restored



4449 pulled what arguably was the most viewed steam train ever, the 1976 american freedom train, here is a poster from that time



also on display, privately owned alco 190, originally built in 1948 as a PA-1, later rebuilt into a PA-4, ended up in mexico and the gutted remains brought back to the us in 2000 and rebuilt to this PA-1 look, pretty cool, i like first gen diesels, they are the first railroad units i was exposed to as a child, in those long ago days when the long island railroad had both freight and passenger



and the spokane, portland and seattle 700, class 4-8-4 Northern, the only surviving example, undergoing restoration to running condition



they were getting ready for saturdays birthday celebration, but i cannot remember if it os the center or the locomotive being honored

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what a magnificent large steam beast this is, for some reason i am really getting into large steam, so much so that i am actually thinking of a trip to ogden utah next may to see the up big boy under steam, i do not know if it will ever happen, but a big boy charter, or a ride behind, i do not care what it costs, how far i have to fly/drive, i WILL be there

 
after some time at the rail heritage center michael and i resumed our drive to the coast, heading towards astoria oregon, making use of the daylight, the bulk materials dockage area in longview washington, we had just come over that bridge in the photo crossing to the oregon side, as following the river via I-5 then west to astoria was the most direct route, the columbia river, from the mouth of the willamette all the way to the ocean is a major commercial port area for oceangoing vessels, i had no idea how much until i saw it



and we are now in astoria, first up, flavel house, a very nicely restored queen anne style captains home, now the home showpiece of the clatsop county historical society




from the rear corner, we did not go in due mostly to time constraints, but we did take a few minutes to walk completely around and take some photos



such intricate wood detail work, not reproducible today unless you are mega rich due to labor costs, master carpenters might have made a dollar a day, for a 10 hour day back then, master craftsmen were generally well paid, but not in line with today

 
moving over to the astoria waterfront, this is the peacock, a long serving columbia river bar pilot boat, with a very unique way of putting the pilots aboard, they launched that little daughter boat off the stern which opened up to expose a ramp/rollers combo, and over to the ship it went, this boat was based on a german north sea life saving boat design
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and a front view

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ships anchored in the columbia river, awaiting cargo assignments



and along came the astoria trolley, i had read about this while researching the astoria area, they operate on 3 miles of waterfront trackage at present, and rather than have the expense of putting back the catenary, they power the trolley by pulling a little trailer behind with a generator that powers the trolley, you can just see the side of it behind the trolley



the columbia bar lightship, very similar to others i have seen, such as the one that used to be off the approaches to new york harbor, the ambrose lightship and is now at the south street seaport



2 coast guard cutters call astoria home, both were in dock with 630 getting what looked like a lot of topside maintenance, this is the last 210 foot medium endurance cutter built for the us coast guard

 
Got a few of mine processed. Catching up to Gary.

SP4449:



OR&N 197:



Astoria Riverfront Trolley:



Captain Flavel House. The gardens were in full bloom while we were there:



Pilot Boat Peacock:

 
we crossed over the bridge and ran the 11 miles up and around to cape disappointment state park, which lived up to its name, no golden hour stunning lighthouse sunset for us, this is the cape disapointment light with a roro vehicle carrier headed out to sea that we had seen coming downriver while we were in astoria. i did not know they had a vehicle port anywhere on the columbia, i thought they all hit the west coast in port of long beach or in oakland



would have been nice subject for a sunset



back over to oregon and into fort stevens state park, to the wreck of the peter iredale, a steel four masted barque lost in heavy seas and wind on the night of 10/25/06 while trying to make the columbia river

 
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nice b&w treatment of the iredale, i didn't even think of shooting for black & white, i got so hung up with the blue & gold filter
 
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so after visiting the iredale we proceeded further south on the coast, about 55 miles on down to garibaldi, fortunately enroute we found an open market and were able to get food supplies for the next day, snacks and lunch stuff, a very important part of a rail charter, and sometimes one requiring some preplanning and searching. found our hotel in garibaldi and joined the charter organizer and several of the participants at a local pub that had some decent food for supper. so without further ado, let us get to it, the base reason we are 3000 miles from our east coast/midatlantic homes. a one day, 2 locomotive charter on the oregon coast railroad. this was not my usual lerro charter, although pete lerro was there, doing advance scouting for a 3 day charter he is running on this railroad in october, which due to it's close proximity to pixel mania meant neither michael or myself could participate in, at least not for me if i wanted to maintain domestic tranquillity. so saturday morning started at 6:30, the depot was walking distance from the hotel, drove over just to easily move the gear and cooler. we were well equipped. the stars of today's show are the mccloud river railroad # 25, a 1925 2-6-2 alco, the other locomotive is polson logging company # 2, a baldwin 2-8-2 built in 1912.
let's start off with the first keeper of the day, # 25 steamed up at the station, you can see part of # 2 behind it, and i think i wasn't fully coffee functional yet as it appears i forgot to take a first light shot of # 2



and an art wall just past the depot end, ocr doesn't really have a classic depot or ticket office as we are used to, so no photo of the ticket shed



and the new coast guard boathouse in garibaldi, taken from the old coast guard dock, and the columbia river and oregon/washington coastal area has the largest concentration of the 47 foot rough weather rescue boats i have ever seen anywhere, that is the grey hull



mccloud 25 pulling the short train we rode behind all day, in that blue car at the end, the logging train was behind us, so a lot of the runby's were at least 4 passes, two from each train, again taken from the old coast guard dock, now a public crabbing pier

 
since it is way too hot to do anything other than relax in the air conditioned house, i have been able to do some photo processing, the only call so far today was an ems call at 6:30 am, before it got too hot. so here is the polson logging company train, with authentic period log cars, i seem to recall hearing that the local mill closed and that's why the ocr no longer has a log load on the train



this little causeway backwater was the site of a few runbys today, with some very fine reflection shots taken



and a low tide marsh, with a low bridge, unfortunately those mud flats became the site of a rescue of a trapped charter participant, deep into the rescue efforts was our very own michael, by virtue of being one of the closest to the scene when it happened.

 
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at the run around siding, the tracks run right next to the water for most of the oregon coast active track at present



here comes the log train



at the first bridge over the nehalem river





and a little creek

 
so lets continue with the charter, do not believe we have looked at this one before

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and we stopped along the coast at these famous landmark rocks, called the 3 graces, these were actually on the coastal shot list i had made up, so as you can imagine i was very pleased to get them as part of the charter

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as you can see, it was very tight quarters but we did manage to get the train into the picture, one of the advantages of a relatively small charter, limited to 25 participants

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#2 putting out the smoke for us, on request, charter organizers get requests all day and night long, more smoke, less smoke, slower, faster, whistle, no whistle, headlight up, headlight down, etc

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