Readers interested in rail transportation — and who isn’t? — will naturally be eager to review the draft of the 2014 Oregon State Rail Plan just published by the Oregon Department of Transportation. At 161 pages, not to mention the 100-page technical report, it takes patience to get through. But it includes some troubling facts, […]
As you might expect, the unexplained presence of a long line of brand new refrigerated railroad cars on a siding southeast of Albany has prompted rumors and a few jokes on the Internet, that fertile field for fueling phony theories of plots. I reported on sighting these cars on Sept. 19 after riding along Midway […]
Almost every ride through the mid-valley countryside makes me ask this question: What the heck is that? Take Thursday, for example. On this brilliant late-summer afternoon I’m pedaling my two-year old Giant Rincon mountain bike along Midway Road. The road parallels the track of the Albany & Eastern Railroad. And on a siding next to the […]
A week or two ago, I stopped and got off my bike in Crabtree. Since then I’ve been wondering if there’s a way towns like this can ever be revived. According to the last census, the unincorporated community had 391 people with a median age of about 45, seven years older than Oregon as a whole. […]
A marker for a time long, long ago
On a Sunday drive through the countryside of Linn County, Kathy and I came across this historical marker behind the railroad track about three miles west of Scio, where Gilkey and Goar roads meet.
Tags: Albany & Eastern, Gilkey Road, Gilkey Station, Goar Road, Linn County, Linn County history, Mill City Branch, Oregon history, Oregon railroads, Scio