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Line slippage

Line slippage

This is an interesting feature of the Westside. Almost all the traffic was downhill - huge logs hauled out of the forest and sent down to the mill. As a result there were huge pressures on the rails as the lumber trains breaked. This caused the rails to gradually slip downhill. To cope with this, slip points were installed and the excess rail occasionally cut and spliced in higher up the line. These short rail sections were known as "deadmen" by the track crews.

This example near the mill entrance shows both this interesting arrangement and the poor current state of the track.

CopyrightDan Crow
Taken Date unknown

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