The sunlight has just cleared the hills as the eastbound Jaype turn blasts upgrade above the tiny village of Konkolville, and over Whiskey Creek bridge at 0830am on July 29, 1993. This day, a rare, matched set of former Missouri-Kansas-Texas (M-K-T) GP38-2's leads the way on 27 loads, 16 empties and 2300 tons. The loads are saw logs bound for Potlatch's Jaype plywood mill. Up The Clearwater:The Woods Railroad East of Spalding, beyond where the hand-to-mouth Second Subdivision turns away from the Clearwater River, is the Camas Prairie Railroad's land of milk and honey. Let's face it--for the past thirty years or more, the Camas Prairie has been operated largely for Potlatch. Its trains overwhelmingly carry Potlatch logs, or lumber, or chemicals bound for Potlatch mills. And Camas Prairie was only too happy to oblige, for the beauty of the CSP charter was that all tariffs on interline traffic (cars both originating and terminating on the Camas Prairie) went to the operating company. In this case, every load of logs or green cut lumber billed to and from Potlatch. BN and UP may have fought it out soliciting those loads of pulp or paper or finished lumber leaving Lewiston, but those trainloads of sawlogs--that was money right into the pocket of the local management. Today, the Orofino-Jaype line is dormant, the mill at Jaype torn down, the rails awaiting the inevitable. Market conditions in 2001 gave Potlatch the opportunity to close down this mill, and with it went the reason for the existence of the 4th Subdivision.  A few mills survive operated by other companies--Bennett and Clearwater Forest industries, for instance, at Kooskia--and a little grain is loaded at Lenore and Greer. The spectacle of trains of sawlogs has vanished, too, Potlatch abandoning the rail haul for trucks. The peak years for long trains of sawlogs along the Clearwater didn't last long. The springtime runoff of the Clearwater River, choked with cut logs floating on their own downriver to Lewiston ended when Dworshak dam plugged the north fork above Orofino in the early 1970s. The "Night Logger," trains 885/886 from Orofino to Lewiston, grew to massive proportions--trains of over 200 cars were nothing out of the ordinary. But tightening of timber harvesting on Forest Service lands, high interest rates for mortgages,  and the glut of Canadian lumber in the U.S. put an end to such displays. Potlatch isn't hurting for timber--it controls more than 600,000 acres of land in North Idaho alone, and this supplies 70 percent of its needs--but production is down. The last 10 miles of the line into Headquarters were abandoned in the 1980s, and daily turns out of Orofino to Jaype AND Headquarters became a thing of the past. By the early 1990s, Camas Prairie was operating two trains a week up the Clearwater, on a two-day tour, operating Lewiston-Kooskia-Orofino the first day, and an Orofino-Jaype-Orofino-Lewiston trip the second. By 1992, the shipment of saw logs in the Northwestern United States was nearly extinct, and outside of only a  couple of isolated logging lines and a short line or two, Camas Prairie was one of the last of the Great Northwest Loggers. No matter that the trains weren't as nor as frequent--they still remained a stirring sight! Fresh-cut western cedar and Douglas fir, piled high in ancient freight cars of questionable mechanical integrity, wobbling down rickety track, occasional branches or strips of bark falling loose. Both railroad's log car fleets were converted from freight cars rescued in their final hours, Union Pacific cutting the sides from beat-up General Service gondolas, BN's preferring to use 40-foot boxcars no longer needed for grain service in the plains. Their friction-bearing trucks hinted the railroads were spending as little as possible to provide a workable fleet of log cars. The eastbound Lewiston turn winds along basalt cliffs and the Clearwater River west of Lenore, Idaho, at 1030am on July 26, 1993, 88 cars trailing four Union Pacific GP38-2's. Twenty-seven of the cars are "commercial" empties; the balance of 61 are empty log flats, bound for reloading at Ahsahka and Jaype. Brakeman Merrill Craig switches the pass track at Ahsahka on July 26, 1993. The eastbound Lewiston turn will pull loads and replace them with the 61 empties brought up from Lewiston. Then the loads will be set out at to the pass track and picked up the next day to Lewiston.. Craig was an extra board brakeman this day; east of Lewiston, holes were filled by BN's Yardley (Spokane) extra board; west of Lewiston, Downriver holes were filled by UP crews out of Hinkle. As soon as the empties are spotted at Ahsahka, a loader gets to work filling them up with more western cedar. After swapping empties for loads at Ahsahka, the Lewiston turn is down to 18 cars, crossing the North Fork of the Clearwater River as it arrives in Orofino. Here, three locomotives will be set out, and cars for "upriver" assembled into a train for Kooskia. It's 1240pm, July 26, 1993. A longtime engineer on this part of the Camas Prairie, engineer Gerry Craig keeps his Jaype turn's four UP GP38-2's pegged at the 20mph speed limit as he lifts 43 cars and 2300 tons up Orofino Creek Canyon below O'Mill, Idaho, on July 29, 1993. Back in the caboose that afternoon on the return trip, Dan Wayt takes care of the paperwork on 64 cars of sawlogs and "commercial" loads of plywood as the Jaype turn departs for Orofino. I got the willies looking out the caboose coupla at logs perched atop bunks no more than 20 feet away; a little heavy slack action, and hello bashed skull! We've just left civilization and the tiny community of Nelson behind as we decent the 2.2 percent down Orofino Creek canyon. Ahead is 64 loads of logs and plywood, 5400 tons. Not bad for a shortline. The CSP crosses 40 bridges in the 28.5 miles between Orofino and Jaype; 12 of these crossings are located between MP 18 and 20 alone A look back from the caboose as we stop to pick up a load at Konkolville. Behind us is Bridge 3, over Whiskey Creek, better-known as the "Konkolville Trestle." It's 210pm July 29, 1993. Traffic is light between Orofino and Kamiah. On July 26, 1993, the 15-car Lewiston turn crosses the Clearwater on an ancient swing bridge. Most of the train is empty "A-frame" log flats; some will return west as idler cars used to space loads out due to the light axle loadings on the bridge--only one locomotive is permitted on the bridge at a time, and cars heavier than 86 tons must be separated from the locomotive by lighter cars. At the time, much of the line's traffic was reload-lumber trucked in and put on rail cars on the grounds of the now-closed Bennett lumber mill. It's been a long day, and the crew of the Lewiston turn is close to using their 12 hours up as the UP 2061 leads 10 cars and a caboose back downriver near Greer at 549pm that same day. The crew will tie up at Orofino and come back on duty at 630 the next morning to make an Orofino-Jaype-Orofino-Lewiston trip. Blair's World    Camas Prairie Home    Milltown    Second Subdivision    Woods Railroad    Vintage     Links, etc. All photographs Copyright 2002 by Blair E. Kooistra, except as noted.  Duplication, reproduction and use of images without permission of photographer is prohibited

Original content copyright 2005 by Blair E. Kooistra. Comments or question?  bkooistra(at)sbcglobal.net