Welcome!
Authors Dr. Frank Telewski and Scott Barrett are dedicated to preserving the history of Weyerhaeuser’s Vail-McDonald logging railroad operation and the Chehalis Western Railroad through field and archival research. We intend to share our research through social media and books and invite you to share your stories and questions or comments via our comment link.
Thank you!
1932 Ford Speeder Special tour
In this video (taken in May of 1989), author Scott Barrett discusses and demonstrates a 1932 Ford Speeder Special. This speeder was used for railroad track patrol by the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company.
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Hi CWRail here (Scott Barrett) here, and a special hello to my friends in Europe. I am on the 43 line which was one of the steepest grades in the Vail woods railroad operation during the era of steam locomotives and steam skidders. According to records from that time, the 43 line had 938 ties laid in 1934 and 6,656 ties laid down in 1936 and 50 ties laid down in 1942. The main 43 line is approximately two miles long including three spurs and one short spur. Keep in mind, logging railroad operations were always pulling up steel and laying new tracks with the steel gang as soon as logging in an area was completed. Leaving Vail, there was an option to travel by rail to the Newaukum river operations at Camp 3-4 and Camp 4-4 by using the 12 line or travel to Siding 8 and take the 40 line to Camp 2-4 located near the junction of the 43 line and 40 line which continued down the hill to Camp 3-4.
This is CWRail, over and out.
Archival Photo: Bob Gehrman – Vail Washington, Aug 28th, 1947
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Consolidated Code of Operating Rules and General Instructions 1945 Edition
Hand signals reference and illustrations.
cite: https://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.mwpl-mrac0008
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On May 1, 1937, the Mutual Lumber Company’s Number 4 Climax locomotive was photographed outside of a shop building in Bucoda, Washington located north of Centralia, Washington. The Number 4 Climax was part of the Mutual Lumber Company’s group of Climax locomotive and is comparable to the Number 2 Climax locomotive that fell twenty feet off a trestle on October 10, 1935 on Mutual Lumber Company track east of Bucoda. Photo from the Scott Barrett collection.
NOTE: the video is an AI simulation of a still photo.
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Hi CWRail here (Scott Barrett): In June, 1947, staff writers for the Weyerhaeuser Company newsletter called the Bee and Cee visited the headquarters camp at Vail and observed the operation taking photographs and interviewing employees. The article was titled Weyerhaeuser Logging Camps at Vail, Washington and the reload located below Camp 5 was mentioned. In the above photo showing four skidders at the end of their service at Vail, this siding is located near the 11-line bridge a few miles north of the Camp 5 reload on the way toward Vail and the high railroad bridge over the Skookumchuck River. Skidders like these were dual purpose machines which yarded logs toward the machine and then loaded the logs onto rail cars using a set of tongs. The Vail operation after World War 2 was transitioning from steam power to diesel yarding machines. The article provides a good time line and reference documenting the end of the Vail woods railroad in 1948. A short portion of the woods line remained to haul large rocks out of the Skookumchuck quarry by rail along with the line running to the Vail reload where an entire load of logs was transferred from a log truck onto a railroad car for the trip to South Bay. This is CWRail over and out!
Bob Gerhrman photo: Feb. 27 1948
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(pic 1) Fireman Lawrence Barrett and Engineer Roy Hussey both from Tenino, WA on spot at Weyerhaeuser’s South Bay Log Dump near Olympia, Washington in November of 1948. The crew is inspecting and oiling the locomotive in preparation of the trip back to Vail. It was common in this era for the train to depart South Bay with the caboose next to the locomotive.
(pic 2) Photo of logs being dumped into the water at South Bay. The logs were placed into rafts and then floated to the Weyerhaeuser mill in Everett, Washington. The rail car on the left is a classic example of a three-log load with two smaller logs used as bunk logs with the much larger log placed in the middle of the rail car.
Photos by: Bob Gehrman. Scott Barrett Collection.
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Hi, CWRail (Scott Barrett) here. Today we are on the 40 line on the Vail Woods line searching for the location where the steam locomotive 100 tipped over and crashed in the late 1930s. The wreck occurred somewhere in this area, and we are determined to find the wreck location.
This is CWRail over and out!
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Hi, CWRail here (Scott Barrett) here. We`re at a little shelter here at the Woodard Bay Conservation Area near Olympia, Washington, which is organized by the Department of Natural Resources. This is their display board.
We have a picture of the 492, and what`s going on here is we`re dumping the second half of a train of logs, and you can see the grapple going down into the water. And the engine, when the operator was called by radio and said, go ahead in the car, and he would go 10 feet, that`ll do.
And this was a pretty common operation. While the train was being unloaded, I`d be on the upper part of the hill inspecting the empty log cars, and my job was to inspect for air dates to see if a car needed to go into the shop, have its air date renewed.
It`s where the air date is, where the process, where the air brake is tested and cleaned. And then I would check the side frames to see that they weren`t cracked, because sometimes a side frame will crack and cause a derailment.
And then I`d check to see that the bunks were not falling over or the extension stakes didn`t have any cracks. And so I would also tie the upper cut down with like several handbrakes while it was on the hill while we were dumping the second part of the train.
This is CWRail, over and out.
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Here is a photo of the Chehalis Western locomotive 684 with a string of empty log cars headed towards Western Junction on the Weyerhaeuser track now called the Chehalis Western trail. Brakeman Scott Barrett is on the fireman’s side of the locomotive as the train nears the Pleasant Glade/26th Ave NE crossing near Olympia, Washington in October, 1975. The 684 will pick up train orders at Western Junction for the trip to Chehalis over the Milwaukee Road. At Chehalis, the 684 will call the Weyerhaeuser dispatcher over the radio at Pe Ell for clearance for the trip over the Chehalis Western track to Milburn where the 684 will use Burlington Northern train orders for the final leg of the trip to Pe Ell on the Burlington Northern track from Milburn. We believe the photo was taken by Jack Smith who we had met earlier at South Bay.
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