PACIFIC LUMBER & SCOTIA SAWMILL

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]from 1965 to 1979 with all the amazing places they hauled lumber to build many of your homes.

[00:00:09]The SP's involvement in the wood products industry in the northern part of the West Coast was an empire in its own right.

[00:00:17]The NWP branch and the Shasta and Siskiyou lines all helped make a steady flood of lumber and related products that seemed to endlessly flow south to waiting markets.

[00:00:29]The flood often started with operations like this one near Scotia on a branch off the NWP.

[00:00:38]The crew is about to make a move you don't see very often these days by dropping the caboose to find its own way to the end of the train on the fly while the Baldwin makes way for the front of the train on the siding.

[00:00:52]This type of move can save a lot of time.

[00:00:56]The train will now head out to Scotia, California using the NWP main line.

[00:01:12]This 1950s built Baldwin model VO-1000 is from Yager Creek, California and will meet the NWP main line at Alton.

[00:01:44]The Baldwin is owned by Pacific Lumber Company who can trace its history back to 1863.

[00:01:52]Pacific Lumber has always been the heavyweight producer in the Humboldt County region and before the NWP was built, they had a small fleet of ocean-going ships to transport the lumber to their markets.

[00:02:05]The company has always been in the forefront of forestry planting and innovative ways to use forest products, especially making use of material that would otherwise be waste.

[00:02:17]These huge logs will soon become lumber and quite a bit of sawdust in the process. The well-known presto logs developed in 1934 are an example that compresses waste such as sawdust into hard logs that can be burned as fuel.

[00:02:35]They also found ways to use the bark in the making of other products.

[00:02:41]Using all the material possible makes the efficient use of the harvested trees and it also cuts down the problem of where to put the waste material by shipping it out as useful products.

[00:02:53]Much of the other waste material has been used to make electricity for the mills and the town of Scotia.

[00:03:01]By 1951, Pacific Lumber also pioneered ways to use pieces of wood that are edge [clears throat] glued into wider pieces.

[00:03:09]These can be used like any other boards in construction and the practice is now common in the industry today.

[00:03:18]The Pacific Lumber plant has always been accessible to the public interested in viewing the inner workings of the sawmill operation.

[00:03:26]A visitor made this film 25 years ago and the lumber you see being made here built the homes that raised an entire generation of Americans.

[00:03:37]Before we visit some other SP lumber heavy lines, let's watch the process that makes all those clean-looking lumber loads.

[00:04:38]>> The shippers of wood products from Northern California also faced strong competition from the suppliers in Oregon filling more trains streaming southward down the Cascade, Black Butte, and Siskiyou Subdivisions. Not only are there the obvious flat car loads of lumber, but hidden from view are wood products in many of the closed box cars.

[00:05:05]>> [music] >> Far to the north end of California was the spectacular Siskiyou Subdivision.

[00:05:19]This train is nearing the southern end of the subdivision at Weed, California, a town named after Abner Weed, who developed the lumber industry in the area over 100 years ago.

[00:05:30]In about 4 miles, the crew will finish their day's work at Black Butte, where the Siskiyou terminates into the Cascade and Black Butte Subdivisions of the well-known Shasta Route.

[00:05:41]When SP was experimenting with locomotive suppliers, there were places that just seemed to be owned by EMD, regardless of how good the Alcos and GEs were in comparison.

[00:05:52]Perhaps it was the perception that these were locations for a conservative design, designs that offered no surprises when they were at least needed.

[00:06:07]The places that come to mind are Donner Pass, the Shasta line, and the Siskiyou Mountain Range.

[00:06:14]All those loads of heavy new lumber can really tax a set of locomotives. The lumber invariably has to come out of territories that include curves and grades.

[00:06:24]The loops and reverse curves in mountainous areas can take as much power as the grade itself.

[00:06:30]The demands on locomotives made the lower horsepower first-generation models less than adequate as time went by, especially the four-axle models.

[00:06:41]The SP style was running a smaller number of longer trains, but it started to become ridiculous when 10 or more F units or Geeps were placed on the point to get it moving.

[00:07:38]The Siskiyou line was once the only main line between Eugene Oregon and Black Butte, California, this 300-mi route is the shortest but most difficult way between these two points.

[00:07:50]By 1926, the Natron Cutoff was finished that routed much of SP's traffic through the Black Butte and Cascade [music] districts by way of Klamath Falls and up to Eugene.

[00:08:03]By far the most challenging [music] part of the Siskiyou Line is concentrated in the Ashland, Oregon to Black Butte, California section, the last 85 mi.

[00:08:19]The climb to the summit at Siskiyou features a trio [music] of tunnels, twisting curves, and steep grades on both sides of the peak.

[00:08:34]>> [music] [music] >> The Siskiyou Line's northern end is near the middle of Oregon at Eugene. A train with SD45 [music] power is a little south of Eugene bringing the offerings of Oregon's lumber industry down to California markets. [music] The large open-top cars are wood chip cars and are one of the largest types that you'll see on the line due to the clearance restrictions found here.

[00:09:20]After this train runs by, you'll briefly see the headlight [music] of an SD9 on the other side of the bridge with a local.

[00:09:31]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> This gloomy-looking day really highlights the SP [music] style light package and reveals the typical assignment with three SD45s on the point.

[00:10:42]This is near the summit on the north slope at Siskiyou.

[00:10:47]The FP500 sign on the right tells where the fouling point for the signal track circuit is on the unoccupied siding.

[00:10:57]If a place ever existed that was made for the SD45, this is it. Here the grades run to well over 3% and the many curves add frictional forces to those of gravity.

[00:11:10]The core business of the north-south traffic was heavy wood products, which just added to the difficulty.

[00:11:39]>> Let's take a ride with the crew of one of these trains when the SD45s were still fresh units and the 20-cylinder 645 diesels were the biggest voice in the business.

[00:11:51]The Siskiyou line featured turn-of-the-century semaphore [music] signals that were state of the art back when E.H. Harriman controlled the SP empire from his Union Pacific empire.

[00:12:04]Over the decades after the opening of the Natron [music] cutoff, the Siskiyou line would continue to have a place with a daily struggle of grades [music] approaching 4%.

[00:12:13]It wasn't just a place for attractive effort. The downhill portions made brakes just as important. For a westbound [music] hitting Compass South and approaching the top at Siskiyou, the challenge was to get the train [music] muscled over the crest, which was inside a 3,100-ft long tunnel, and simultaneously begin setting up the train's brakes for a long downhill run.

[00:12:39]>> [music] [music] >> Look for this title on our website for the complete story of SP topics from a long-gone era, and thanks for watching.