On Tuesday, the Simpson Lumber Co. announced it had sold its sawmill operations in Shelton to Sierra Pacific Industries. In a separate announcement, SPI stated it would not operate the mills in Shelton but rather dismantle them and build a new, state-of-the-art mill there to be opened in 2017. About 270 people will lose their jobs because of the sale.
The company has not sold the railroad, however it will be shut down along with the mills in late June.
Located about an hour and a half south of Seattle, the Simpson rail operation out of Shelton is considered by many as the last traditional logging railroad in the U.S. At one time, Simpson’s railroad stretched for more than 200 miles through the forest south and west of the Puget Sound, but today only 11 miles remain.
Simpson spokeswoman Betsy Stauffer tells Trains News Wire that it is unclear what will happen to the railroad in the future and that the company is currently focused on wrapping up the deal with SPI and shutting down the mills in an orderly fashion. She says that the company does realize the historic value of the rail operation and that it will be open to suggestions on how to “repurpose” it in the future. For now, the rail line will not be removed.
While the railroad continues to switch its parent company’s sawmill in Shelton, the main line between there and Mill 5, just west of there, has been shut down since 2013 after a train carrying logging equipment snagged a power line and took down five utility poles. The resulting outage left 700 people without power and left one woman trapped for nearly an hour when a live wire came down on her vehicle.
Before the shutdown, the Simpson railroad took logs that had been floated to Oakland Bay 11 miles up the line to Mill 5. There the logs were made into lumber, some of which was loaded onto flatcars and railed back to Shelton. In 2012 and 2013, it was common for trains to make one or two daily round trips, depending on demand and the tide. The railroad uses four SW1200s and one SW900, which replaced steam in the 1950s.
The closure of the Simpson rail operation leaves just one traditional logging railroad left in North America: Western Forest Product Co.’s Englewood Logging Railway on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. The Englewood operation includes 56 miles of track on the north end of the island.
