My friend Scott Lothes shares his wonderful adventures on the Oregon Trunk this month. The “OT” or “the Trunk,” as it is sometimes referred to, is a fascinating piece of western railroading. Built in the early part of the 20th century, it was one of the last large-scale lines built — at first as two competing lines, and later as a combined compromise route — that reached south from the Columbia River and into the high plains of central Oregon.
Where it was meant to go after Bend was never a certainty. One proposal had a line heading east into the high desert to Burns and then, via the Malheur River, to Idaho, the upper Snake River basin, and a connection with Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. This “Q” extension almost happened — right-of-way was secured and construction began, but was later halted and ownership of the line traded to Union Pacific, who completed the Burns to Idaho segment but never linked it up to the Trunk.
Another plan, favored by OT investor James J. Hill, was to extend south then west over the Cascades into the Rogue River Valley (then a monopoly of Southern Pacific), then out and down the coast to a connection with Northwestern Pacific (which until the 1920s was co-owned by the Santa Fe).
However, it was a different California connection that won out. During the 1920s, Great Northern launched an extension of the Trunk at Bend, headed south. Using a logging railroad, trackage rights won at court off SP, and a newly built line from Klamath Falls, GN reached California and a connection with Western Pacific at lonely, dusty Bieber in November 1931. Hill never saw it — he had been dead for 15 years by then — but his dream had finally come true.
The connection, nicknamed the “Inside Gateway,” became an important corridor for north-south freight, connecting GN and Santa Fe — by way of WP. The sleepy branch to nowhere had suddenly become an important main. This Inside Gateway, and its Oregon Trunk segment, remained a colorful and important part of Northwest railroading for generations. It came to a close in 1982 when UP acquired WP, and with it, GN successor Burlington Northern lost its “friendly” connection to California. As a result of the UP-SP merger in 1996, successor BNSF secured a trackage rights concession over the old WP, restoring the Trunk, in some fashion, as a through route to California.
The OT is layered. Its landscape is literally layered from volcanic rock, eroded across ages by the water of the Deschutes River. Its history is layered in railroad politics, economics, and a furtive operational existence. And so, too, Scott’s many trips to the Trunk are a kind of layering, a long-term commitment to return, again and again, and get to know a place well, maybe become part of it.
But I’m also struck by another kind of layering — that of the many friendships that were involved in Scott’s multiple visits to the line. Places like the Trunk become touchstones that we share (like managing editor Otto Vondrak’s experiences in Markers). Maybe all the history and development of the Oregon Trunk — or any railway — is a pile of trivia and arcane knowledge, but it’s also one that, for whatever reason, those of us in the hobby tend to share with one another. Maybe, when we look at places on the map, or view them in person, all those layers of facts and dates and figures become a story, one that connects us, both to the places and to each other.
—Alexander Benjamin Craghead is a transportation historian, photographer, artist, and author.
