Re: Weyerhauser C-415- O. T. Mixed
Author: Ed Immel
Date: 09-07-2008 - 08:24
There are still several of us around that were on those OT mixed trains - Roger Phillips and John Holloway still live in the Portland area. Most of the rest are no longer with us.
We had a variety of motive power on those mixed trips. One year we had an FA and RS3 combo. That was also the year that the train had no freight cars on it out of Bend and did not pick up anything until Madras. Another year we were at the end of a 110 car freight. I still remember the conductor using a locomotive headlight mounted in the doorway of the combine trying to spot the fishermen that they had dropped off in the Deschutes Canyon earlier in the day. Most of them had purchased a ticket to some obscure milepost in the canyon and the conductor would have a "switchlist" in order to locate them on the return trip. As a side note, the SP&S would charge us 10 coach tickets to add the Mt. St. Helens to the train - $154 for a Portland to Bend roundtrip.
While everyone was taking the last ride on the Broadway and the Super Chief the days before Amtrak, John Holloway and I were riding the last OT mixed. I still have the Amtrak "discontinuance of service" notice from one of the sidings in the Deschutes Canyon.