The Northwestern Pacific Railroad, known for over 125 years as the primary shipper of lumber along the Redwood Empire stretching from Marin County to Humbolt Bay, now has new shipper, at wheat farmer in Sonoma County. The NWP is re-inventing itself with a new traffic base as the high price and in-effeciency of trucking loses out to railroading. As of this writing, I am not at liberty to say who it is, but the first two loads were shipped out this Wednesday from the NWP team track south of Willowbrook at the former Adobe Lumber Co. spur. More loads are expected to be loaded out next week. The wheat is destined for Washington on a BNSF routing. As I mentioned in a previous post, Lagunitis Brewing is receiving inbound loads of barley at their plant adjacent to the mainline and drill track servicing these customers. Here is the an image of the loading operation of the wheat at the team track north of Petaluma. The trucks trans-load the wheat using an on site conveyor belt that distributes the product evenly through the hatches on top of the grain cars. Inbound Feed and Grain has always been a staple of the NWP however, local wheat being shipped outbound is new to the railroad. The second image shows the spur coming off the drill track next to the mainline. ( The drill track is the old legacy mainline which was dragged over to the new roadbed before SMART laid their welded rail and concrete ties. The final shot, shows the spur curving off to the west. Willowbrook Feed and Grain Co. is in the background and their spur comes off the mainline near Ely Road. Text and Photo by Mike Pechner
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