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 A description of this "backwater mainline" [in the 1980s] is a tale of a diverse, frantic schedule of freight service. There are two trains that have maintained a fairly consistent schedule in recent years. Six days a week, a train runs between Eugene Yard and Medford to gather loads and maintain the flow of empties to local crews working along the line. (Medford, a key station on the Siskiyou Line, is about 208 miles from Eugene.) A second through freight is designed to move cars between Eugene and Roseburg, a distance of approximately 75 miles. This operation, as with the Eugene-Medford train, also rolls six days per week. Trains in the opposite direction - Medford to Eugene and Roseburg to Eugene - also operate six days a week. A third train - a manifest freight out of Roseville, California - runs through to Medford seven days a week [and in the reverse direction - Medford to Roseville].
There is a variety of motive power pulling long haul trains on the Siskiyou Line. SD9s, GP9s, SD40s, SD40T-2s, SD45s, and SD45T-2s predominate. Pool locomotives (including units from the Union Pacific, Burlington Northern, and Denver & Rio Grande Western) are seen now and then.
Local service is much more elaborate, with trains normally operating on weekdays. Alterations in schedules are not uncommon, but one thing has remained constant in recent years: invariably, local trains move with SD9s on the point. Basically, local operations are arranged as follows: from Eugene Yard, where all Siskiyou Line southbounds originate, there is a train known as the Yoncalla Local that works six days per week. Yoncalla is a small town located about 40 miles south of Eugene. Despite the name, there are no shippers in Yoncalla any more, due to the closure of a lumber mill there years ago. The crew normally serves the big North Douglas Wood Products plywood mill (formerly owned by Bohemia) about five miles north of Yoncalla, and interchanges with the Oregon, Pacific & Eastern Railway at Cottage Grove. The Yoncalla Local is also charged with switching an industrial district at Springfield, on the Cascade Line, a little over a mile east (west by timetable) of Springfield Junction.
... but one thing has remained constant in recent years: invariably, local trains move with SD9s on the point.
Looking a little farther south, there are three local crews based out of Roseburg. One crew runs north to Oakland and back (17 miles one way) with a local train romatically referred to as the "Rice Hill Rocket". Another crew heads south as far as Riddle (28 miles) serving shippers in Myrtle Creek and Riddle. Both trains are scheduled five days a week. Also the Dole Turn ["Fruit Loop"] runs to Dillard six days a week. In Dillard, the crew sets out empties at Roseburg Forest Products' mills and returns to Roseburg with the day's lumber loads.
Although helper units are commonly used north of Roseburg and in the mountains around Grants Pass, nowhere are the gradients as severe as those found along the Oregon-California border. The grade at tunnel 13, just beyond Siskiyou, is the steepest SP track anywhere: 3.67 percent. And Siskiyou summit also is the line's highest elevation: 4,135 feet. There are 16 tunnels on the line, the longest - Tunnel #13 - being 3,108 feet long. From Siskiyou Summit, moving north, the roadbed descends 2,234 feet in 17 miles to reach the floor of the Rogue Valley near Ashland.
 The Siskiyou Line is one of the few remaining major rail lines using semaphore signal towers. Unfortunately, but predictably, the semaphore towers are endangered and not likely to survive much longer.
Interestingly, over the entire 300-plus miles of the Siskiyou Line, there is only one SP branchline - the 5.8-mile White City Branch at Tolo, about nine miles north of Medford. Customers on the branch include Boise Cascade, 3M, Husky Charcoal, and Down River Forest Products. As is so often the case in western Oregon, shipments of lumber are the only thing keeping the rails shiny.
Far to the north is a Siskiyou branch shortline, the 16.4-mile Oregon, Pacific & Eastern, based at Cottage Grove, about 20 miles south of Eugene. The OP&E is entirely owned by Bohemia, Inc., the big lumber company that operates two mills at the end-of-track in Culp Creek. The level of freight service on the line is thrice-weekly, and trains were powered by either an Alco S2 or an EMD SW8, the two remaining locos on the OP&E stable. The short line operates a slow excursion train to Culp Creek and back, a 34-mile round trip, featuring a diesel locomotive on weekdays, and a Baldwin 2-8-2 steamer on weekends.
Rich in lore and featuring wonderfully named western towns such as Wolf Creek and Weed along its path, the century-old Siskiyou Subdivision offers a magnificent and multifaceted slice of Western railroading. ¶ |
