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I just returned from a POTB board meeting where Rick Franklin of Rick Franklin Corp. (RFC) presented the results of his walk through the affected Salmonberry Canyon. Here is a synopsis of his nearly one hour presentation.

RFC along with the engineering consulting firm H.D.R and the Geotech/Environmental consultant firm Shannon & Wilson walked the railroad during the week of December 17, 2007.

The cause of the damage was due primarily to the following conditions, heavy rains (14" recorded at Less Camp, closest recording), saturated ground, high river levels (several places estimated to be over 20' above normal river levels.

The worst damage was located at milepost 803.4 located RR east of the Wolf Creek Tunnel. Here the track sits over a hole approx. 250' long and 140' above Wolf Creek.

About five or six curves were washed away due to high water levels. Many culverts were plugged up when the large trees were carried to the openings by high water causing the water to divert around the culvert and washing out the track.

All told there is just under 7000' feet of track missing and about 8000' feet of track burried under various slides. Mr. Franklin stressed several times when you consider that less than 1.5 miles of track is missing in 95 miles of main line we survived pretty well. It was also stated that 80% of the repairs made in 1996 are still intact.

The overall theme for the repair work was that large riprap would be brought in and anchored to the bedrock to build a subroad structure similar to an ocean jetty that will allow the water to run past with out moving. It was estimated that about 57,000 cubic yards of material will be removed and piled at one of two locations on the line. Then about 300,000 cubic yards of new material brought in to repair the washed out sections; which about 85,000 cubic yard will be the riprap. In addition the wood debris will be removed from the canyon, it was mentioned that one of the mitigating factors in the damage was the accumulation of depris in the canyon since 1996.

The time frame for the repairs was 182 days to completely repair the line with regular freight train operations in 120 days. Total estimated cost is approx $26.6 Million. Mr. Franklin said in 1996 the opened the line one week early and about 12% below budget and he hopes for similar results this time.

The overall atmosphere of the meeting was positive and the board intends to continue pursuing the funding needed. FEMA will pay about 75% leaving approx. $7 Million to match. POTB hopes to get help from the state of Oregon.

The repair compaies learn a lot since the 1996 damage and the repairs done this time around will be better and should last longer. 1996 had 33 sites that neede repair and 3 were considered major. Today we have 97 sites with 17 sites considered major.

We are all hopeful that things will start moving soon to reopen on of Oregon's most secnic lines and a major artery for Tillamook County commerce.
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Aaron Zorko
N0XCJ