Good info, Gary. Thanks!
Anderson was always the steady - if not the only - customer, so glad to hear that they are getting even more business from them.
Central Drywall was at one time a decent shipper for the Lewis & Clark RR (iirc) but had swtiched to receiving most of their product by truck from somewhere across the river by I believe St. Helens. Interesting that they are getting something there again.
The siding at Brush Prairie is next to a business that was open to letting trucks use his property for a turn-around for a transload type operation, but nothing ever came of that at the time. I believe the bigger hope there was going to be an asphalt plant that for whatever reason never came to fruition. I know the locals were against it so that might have killed it.
The transload operator at 62nd is a great customer to have I'm sure. They can help facilitate a lot of different types of business, as you say. At the time we (they) acquired the property, the thought was to be able to build into it as needed with several spurs for transloading, but just having the one dead-end siding is a great thing. Neat little operation they have there.
The sand should be a good, steady business for them as well. I remember dealing with the guy at (I believe) Lane Mountain and he was decent to work with. The guys doing the actual truck hauling (family run business iirc) were also good people.
The flour is intriguing. I wonder if that was the people I spoke to at one time. They had been looking at something up near Tacoma and I'd suggested the Meeker Southern to them - not sure what came of that, if anything.
We talked to a guy over in Portland about transloading of Soy Bean Oil (not sure if that's what you are referring to) but the main issue was Washington's B&O taxes.
I liked the guys at Omega - old-school business people. The track panels they build were I think for BNSF.
There was a propane guy (I can remember his name to this day) who was interested in setting up a propane site but in the actual meeting he had apparently miscalculated and instead of needing 200 cars a year or even 20 cars a year it was actually going to be like 2-4 cars. That made for a short meeting.
There were other ideas and leads as well, but at the end of the day you are also reliant on the BNSF, and for my brief time being involved in some of that stuff I learned that there is a lot going on behind the scenes - and much of it personality driven - that it isn't as easy as picking up the phone and attracting business. There was a whole pyramid of people with different ideas, agendas, and grudges, and any one of them could muck up the works if they wanted to.
Anyhow, glad to see the line doing well. It'd make a great basis for a model railroad too.
-Dave
They do have a much large customer base than they used to have...I'll try to list them here...
They still have the Anderson plastic business in battle ground...they also have central dry wall who still ships a few cars a year to battle ground...at Brush prairie, Anderson plastics has set up another plastic bottle facility, so now there are two....at the new sand spur near Barberton, at the foot of 62nd ave, is another customer...this is the trans load facility, but this is not owned by the railroad...they transfer anything you want...right now the two big customers are for glass sand, and roofing sand for shingles, both different customers and type of car...the glass sand comes in the brown BNSF two bay hoppers, they have also trans-loaded soy product there...then there is Rye yard, BOC gasses still ships but only when demand is high, so usually in the summer, and they haven't had a car for about four months, then Omega industries with track panels, and there is state pipe at the far west end of the yard, they are down to only one or two cars a year now, basically only special size pipe, and yes there is a another trans load there at Rye, and they do trans load Flour from air blown hoppers...and lets not forget BPA down at Ross...I think they ship once a year or so, this is usually for large substation transformers and parts...
That is about it for customers... They still are trying to get a propane customer out to brush prairie, but I am not sure how this is going...
they run about three days a week... generally Monday Wednesday and Friday, but you know how schedules work...on duty in the AM, and usually done by 3 in the afternoon...Hope this helps...
Gary D.
