#sp oregon division

[espee-southernpacifc]

Cadillac Rarity by Greg Brown Via Flickr:  On a fine spring day, my friend Mike Devlin and I arose early to spend a day railfanning Southern Pacific in the Oregon Cascades. By pure chance, we caught this worktrain at Fields. It was setting out water cars for potential firefighting during the summer.

Cadillac being the Espee nickname for the hard-working SD9's. This scene could have transpired like this anytime from the 1950's to the 1980's — only thing change would be the height of the trees...

[trainmaniac]

Rice Hill Hauler by Greg Brown Via Flickr: A southbound train on Central Oregon & Pacific's Siskiyou LIne has just crested Rice Hill on summer 1995's first Sunday afternoon. This is one of several summits on the Siskiyou.

[espee-southernpacifc]

Portland Division Portal by Greg Brown Via Flickr: During an Amtrak joyride in spring 1981, I encountered this door at Union Station in Portland, Oregon. You can tell that the door was relettered when Southern Pacific's Portland Division became part of the new Oregon Division. Regardless of operating entity, I doubt this was a particularly pleasant door to open if you were an SP employee.

[trainmaniac]

Pulling the Hill by Greg Brown Via Flickr: Central Oregon & Pacific's Weed Switcher is climbing the 3+% grade between Edgewood and Weed, California. The severe grades and curvature of the Siskiyou Line are why Southern Pacific ultimately built the Natron Cutoff to bypass the original rail route between California and the Northwest.

[espee-southernpacifc]

Saturday Sunrise at the Stateline (3 of 3) by Greg Brown Via Flickr: Back in the DINK (Double Income, no Kids) days, we usually went to Klamath Falls for Memorial Day weekend. In 1996, we maintained the tradition. On the way home from work Friday afternoon, we saw Southern Pacific makinq up the Los Angeles bound Swift RoadRailer at Brooklyn Yard in Southeast Portland. The Portland-LA RoadRailer had just entered revenue service a couple of months earlier. I got up before sunrise in Klamath on Saturday morning, hoping to intercept the RoadRailer somewhere. At the time, I didn't know that you could use SP's car tracing 800 number to find the location of the RoadRailer trailers. My plan was to go to the Oregon/California stateline, listen to the scanner, and see what developed. As I left Klamath Falls, I saw a northbound BNSF train entering the SP at Bieber Line Junction. Burlington Northern had been merged with Santa Fe the previous September, but the new BNSF had made no blatant operational changes at Klamath Falls. Trains still ran with cabooses, in deference to the hand throw turnouts on Oregon Trunk sidings. Chatter between BN/BNSF crews was often a good source of information. It would prove to be so today. Not long after I arrived at the stateline, a westbound SP drag came into view. It had four units running elephant style, including a Conrail GE and a Rio Grande tunnel motor. As the train passed, I thought about taking off south and chasing it - until the scanner gave me the traffic report I was waiting for. The SP dispatcher had advised the BNSF train that he would hold at the east end of Klamath Falls Yard for one train before he could enter the main and head for Bend. When that train arrived at Klamath, here's what I heard on the BNSF road channel: BNSF Engineer: Wait 'til you see the train they stuck us for. You won't believe it!" BNSF Conductor: "How so?" BNSF Engineer: "This poor SP is gettin' so hard up, they can't even afford flatcars for their pig trains!" About 25 minutes later, the RoadRailer rolled through Worden, climbed the big fill on the mid-60s line change at the Lake Miller dry lake bed, and passed me. It was the start of a great chase that ended late that morning in the Sacramento River Canyon. In this image, the westbound RoadRailer is approaching the Oregon/California state line. A dozen years earlier, when SP 4449 was enroute to New Orleans, there were at least 100 photographers here.