Into the hole at Wheeler. Clearing the line for an SP Freight, Columbia River Belt Line Railway #7 "Skookum" hauls her string of empty log bunks into the hole at Wheeler. The Skookum is making her slow trek from the saw mills at Garibaldi toward the Nehalem River Canyon, to fetch another load of fresh timber from logging operations in the mountains east of Wheeler.
The Skookum has been restored by the steam team at the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad in Garibaldi, Oregon over the last half dozen years. The goal has been to make her look as much like she did as-delivered back in 1909, when she was manufactured by the Baldwin Locomotive Works. Skookum sports a Baldwin Green boiler jacket, a wooden cab and a capped stack. As can be seen here, she's a very pretty piece of machinery. Once all of the teething problems with this complex engine are ironed out, the plan calls for her to be trucked to California, where she will temporarily reside at the Niles Canyon Railway in Sunol, California. For the 2019 season, she'll pull tourist trips there, but after that, the plans are less well-defined. Ultimately, she will likely end up at the Roots of Motive Power Museum in Willits, California.
