Dozens of times over the last few months, I’ve ridden the bike past a roadside memorial where the Cox Creek Path comes out on Salem Avenue. Wind and weather have reduced the shrine to a small pile of rubbish, but you can still tell for whom it was put up.
Reader Max Hoefer saw all the construction activity at the west end of the Jefferson bridge. “What is going on?” he asked. So on Sunday the Answer Man went to take a look.
Sawmills disappeared from Albany decades ago, but a part of the business has returned in the form of a small company that buys logs and resells them to mills in Oregon and as far away as China.
On my way back from Shedd on Thursday, I was glad to see that my favorite railroad bridge has not yet been replaced. I like all bridges, but this one especially because it shows that a simple design properly built can do a hard job for more than a hundred years.
Here’s another reason to welcome double-stacking of containers on Union Pacific’s mainline through Albany: Think of the additional congestion prevented on Interstate 5 that the trains represent.
Albany’s busiest railroad crossing on Queen Avenue will be improved for safety one of these days. But it won’t be soon, and when it’s done it will still be a bumpy ride for cars.
The sprawling Millersburg site where International Paper shut down and demolished the Albany Paper Mill still sits mostly empty, presumably awaiting a buyer. But some local officials have visions of turning the place into an intermodal shipping hub that would bypass the troubled Port of Portland and link the valley to the world.
I was on the section of Seventh Avenue paralleling the Union Pacific’s mainline. And I nearly jumped over the handlebars when a UP freight, pounding up the tracks behind me, let loose with its horn, twice. Then I stopped and watched a long line of war-fighting equipment being hauled north.
Albany has been a railroad town since 1870. Some people don’t like the sound of that. Train horns at crossings bother them. But turning the entire city into a “quiet zone” might cost in the neighborhood of $14 million.
Another rail crossing to avoid?
If Santiam Road on Tuesday is an example, the notorious Queen Avenue railroad crossing is not the only place in Albany where train operations sometimes cause long delays.
Tags: Albany grade crossings, Railroad operations, Santiam Road, Union Pacific