So a few people took an interest in the Saint Maries River Railraod thread and the stuff they have laying around. I have been following this little railroad since about 1985 when I really started getting into trains. The nice thing aobut these guys is that they have always been rail fan friendly.
Some History. Located in Saint Maries, Idaho at the confluence of the St. Joe river and the Saint Maries River. It was formed in 1980 with the remnants of the Milwaukee. The Milwaukee was a huge service to the St Maries areas mills. It was the only rail connection. In addition to through freight and passenger service, it served a branch line to Bovil, ID. Logs were hauled from Bovil to St Maries to one of two mills in town and garnet sand was also brought down. With the demise of the Milwaukee something was going to need to be done. The Potlatch corporation was the main mill and also owner of most of the timber land served. So it bought the mainline tracks from Avery, ID to Plummer ID and the branch line to Bovil Idaho. At Plummer the UP had a line that connected to the Milwaukee that served to allow Milwaukee to take passengers to Spokane WA and served a mill in Plummer. A deal was struck with the new St Maries River Railroad to have an interchange at Plummer. This sets the stage.
From 1980 until the I forget when operations consisted of runs to Bovil and Clarkia ID for logs. On this same branch there is a huge placer garnet mine operation for sand for sandpaper. Logs were brought down mainly to the huge potlatch mill in town. Another mill did receive a few of the logs. Then the finished lumber and the garnets were taken to the UP interchange in Plummer. Some stuff was brought into town but not much. Over the years there has been a steady decline in services. First to go was the connection to Avery it was deemed easier to just bring the logs all the way to town. This happened very early. Then the tracks washed out between Bovil and Clarkia and it was deemed not worth fixing. Then came the end of the garnets. And finally a few years ago now the end of the log hauling operation. As a result today all that remains is to haul finished lumber products from the two mills in town to Plummer. Potlatch saw the writing on the wall for the STMA and was set to abandon the branch line and eventually sold the entire operation at a loss. A company in the mid west bought it. Thinking outside the box they saw other ways to make the line profitable. First the STMA has a first rate engine and car shop. So they plan to do locomotive rebuilds and car service. With miles of sidings and a fairly large yard they also are doing car storage. A recent development was the stopping of the process to abandon the Clarkia branch and bring in four passenger heavy weights. The idea is a hopeful excursion train. That brings you p to date. Now for the good stuff.
Here is a Google Earth image of the yard.
The yard consists of several buildings and sidings. The main features are the depot
And the shop.
Other note worthy buildings, The fuel tank and pump house
and the scale house
And now for the equipment. The engines the switcher is a SW1200 they used to have two the #501 and #502. They are down to just the #501 I believe. And the three GP9s which had their noses chopped at some point in time and these have 48" fans instead of pairs of 36" fans which I was told was done in the rebuild but I think likely they were a later production version that came that way from the factory. They still use #102 and #103 not sure if they still have #101 or not.
The cabeese. The original was the ex Milwaukee rib side but that didn’t last long and then they got what I believe is an ex BN cupola caboose
and the rest of the cool stuff they have at the yard.
Fire fighting tanker
Jordan Spreader
One of four McCloud Heavyweights
Plow (Craig likes his snow dozer well this ugly POS is just very cool)
Flanger
Side dump
They have other various flat cars and down the tracks are a couple of shorty hoppers that always seem to be arund but I don’t think they are STMA cars. Also they used to have a fleet of box cars but they are all gone now. But the heart of the operation was the log car.
Picture from RR Picture Archive.net
I don’t know how many of these log cars they had but it was a bunch I am sure well over 100. They were all scrapped except two. One sits at the Railroad museum in Davenport WA and another sits at the rail Museum in Potlatch, ID.
Here are some pictures of various things to close out the post.
Tunnel at Benewah Lake.
Wood Trestle over highway at Santa ID.
Kids and I and the wife taking the pictures on board one of the locomotives in 2008 doing some switching at the log yard in Clarkia, ID. They waited for the boss to leave then stopped and let us on board for switching. This I believe was the last year they brought logs down.
The train we helped build. Just a small load of logs. They brought these loads down like this twice a week.
Pedee Trestle on the Plummer run
UP interchange at Plummer, ID
At Plummer there is a wye track. Behind us is the track east to St Maries. To the right is the track to the north to Spokane and the left is the track west to Plummer where there is a staging yard and a mill. Back in the day there was also a track behind us that is just a trail now. But that track and the one heading to the right is the old Oregon Railway and Navigation Co/Union Pacific line that ran to Wallace, Id and the Coeur d’Alene mining District. It also was leased by Milwaukee for local freight and passenger service to Spokane. The other track still in place to the East and the track to the left are the old Milwaukee mainline.
Well I hope this was enjoyable. It is one of my favorite railroads.
