2 hours 9 minutes
Portland and Western’s Toledo Branch weaves through America’s premier
timber producing lands in western Oregon. This backwoods railroad
serves a Georgia Pacific paper mill in the small town of Toledo. Five
days a week, trains make the seventy-five mile journey over the branch
line between its namesake town and Albany in the lush Willamette Valley.
Part 2 of this series will focus on the east end of this former
Southern Pacific branch line with an insightful combination of historic
images and modern-day operations. We begin at the remote community of
Summit and follow the weaving course of the Mary’s River down the east
side of the heavily forested Coast Range. Aerial photography provides an
amazing perspective of the more isolated portions of the branch.
EMD GP39-2’s and GP40P slug sets power trains of containerboard, wood
chips, and lumber through the rugged coastal mountains. The railroad
crosses numerous secluded trestles and passes graveyards of old mills
with a history as rich as the beautiful scenery that surrounds it.
Leaving the woods, the line traverses busy city streets and races
through open farm land before meeting the Willamette River and the Union
Pacific main line at Albany.
