Art & Words by
HOWARD B. TAYLOR

This Baldwin locomotive, as used in the Civil War, was used in the early 1900’s along with two sister locies on the Oregon Pacific and Eastern RR. This road runs easterly out of Cottage Grove. It is in use, serves the Bohemia Lumber Company. It is locally called the Slow and Easy. Two of these locies were purchased by J. H. Chambers for standby engines. Chambers’ road ran westerly out of Cottage Grove.

As logging engineer for J. H. and Vic one of my jobs was rebuilding the trestle shown. The old trestle was on an inconsistent curve which compounded five times. It apparently was surveyed better but improved as the true curve did not leave the right of way. I found that our foremen believed in “easing” a curve by swinging the alignment away from the curve at the tangent point and compounding it back to the takes in an interesting curleque which my Dad called a compound spinal reverse. The track writhed.