BAY CITY Nov. 23, 2009 --- 1911 was a big year for Tillamook County. That was the year modern rail transportation arrived. The Pacific Railroad and Navigation Company, incorporated in October 1905, punched a rail line through the Coast Range and down the Salmonberry Canyon, ultimately meeting up with the other end of the line under construction from Tillamook northward through Bay City, Garibaldi, Rockaway Beach and Wheeler. The completed line initially offered Portlanders a scenic eight-hour trip to luxuriate on Oregon's magnificent beaches, a welcome alternative to suffering mal de mer aboard the Elmore or the Argo and braving the hazards of bar crossings at Astoria and Garibaldi.

Although Elmer E. Lytle figures prominently in the early railroad, the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads had considerable influence over the project. It was in the interest of these two railroads to keep James J. Hill's Great Northern Railroad from building a competing route in Western Oregon. Lytle's P. R. & N., nicknamed the "Punk, Rotten and Nasty," contracted with Dr. William Hawk to construct a hospital in Bay City to care for injured rail workers, a common practice in those days. Lytle also built a number of sawmills to provide the road with materials for ties, trestles and tunnels. The line boasted 13 tunnels and 35 bridges, grades of up to three percent and 15-degree curves, significant challenges for any railroad.

The first train from Portland arrived in Tillamook in October 1911, and soon tourists were flocking to the beach. A prime destination was the resort community of Bay Ocean, which required a trip by launch from Bay City to the resort across the bay.

But the original P. R. & N. was doomed to a short existence. Lytle, who built the line for $5 million, sold it to the Southern Pacific in 1915. But names made little difference. The presence of a railroad, any railroad, brought an economic boom to Tillamook County. Though the passenger business faded rapidly with the advent of the automobile and construction of rudimentary roadways, a burgeoning wood products industry quickly took up the slack.

Ultimately, Southern Pacific divested itself of its branch line operations, and the Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad was born. Until December 2007, the P. O. T. B. Railroad carried dimension lumber from sawmills in Tillamook to markets in Portland and the Willamette Valley. That operation was interrupted following the great storm of 1996, and again after the December storms of 2007, from which it has yet to recover. (Source: "Railroad," by George Abdil, Tillamook Headlight Herald, April 2, 1953, reprinted in "Tillamook History.")

Today, anyone traveling via State Route 6 will notice the steady flow of trucks belching diesel smoke, carrying Hampton Lumber products to the Valley, products formerly transported primarily by rail.

Today, in the face of our economic downturn, the federal government has ponied up stimulus dollars to do just about everything short of washing the dog. The idea, of course, is to invest in improving our transportation infrastructure, generating jobs in the process. Sadly, the number of jobs created remains shrouded in the swirling mists of bureaucratic miasma.

But the Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad offers an ideal stimulus project --- one which not only restores an important segment of the Oregon Coast's transportation infrastructure, but also creates abundant jobs in the process.

It has been demonstrated that goods can be hauled by rail for a fraction of what it costs to haul by motor transport. A gallon of diesel fuel in a diesel locomotive will haul more tonnage than a gallon of fuel in a truck.

Let's look at the safety aspect. Truck traffic over Tillamook County's highways has increased dramatically since the shutdown of the railroad. Obviously, there must be a means of moving Tillamook's cheese and lumber products to market. Doing so by truck causes greater wear and tear on the highways and, naturally, rising maintenance costs. If maintenance is deferred, the highways will deteriorate rapidly and present increased safety hazards for all who use them. Compounding the hazards from highway damage, the mere presence of large numbers of heavy trucks laboring up steep grades or careening downgrade presents safety issues.