Cascade Trestle/Milepost 320 (June 2015)

[Paul Davenport]

The 2015 C session sign crew made it out to Osier and Cascade Trestle for some maintenance and documentation work. While one crew member did some sign painting at Osier and another reset a fallen sign west of Osier, two crew members hiked to the trestle where one of the things we needed to do was check Milepost 320. It's located on a steep, rocky slope at trestle's west end.

This photo was taken from the trestle's east end. MP 320 is visible on the other side, just to the right.

This shows MP320 in relation to the west end of the trestle.

The post was in pretty good shape. The only maintenance it needed during this visit was some cleaning of bird leavings from the top and touchup of the paint.

This shot shows that the location == steep and very rocky -- is a difficult place to reach. It won't be fun replacing that post in the future. We normally have four guys carry mileposts by using straps, two guys on each side, but that wouldn't be easy here because of the post's location. That might be a good use for the derrick.

By now it was early afternoon and the westbound made its appearance. And it was time to begin the hike back to Osier.

[Tom Casper]

Looks like a job for the pop car and trailer.

Tom C.

[Paul Davenport]

Tom,
If they can lift the post over to a hole on a slope like that, I'm all for it. And I'll want to see them in action.
Paul

[Wayne Hoskin]

Digging up (no pun) an oldish post here, but how big are the posts? of course it begs the question of how the hell did someone dig a hole for that post in the first place?
I have ridden the train a couple of times and the thought just occurred to me that I was looking out the Cascade Creek side both times and never thought of looking up that valley at the view, maybe next trip, but I will be the only one looking out that side of the train. A fella was fly fishing just below Cascade Trestle on the last trip, that would have been a good view of the train from down there.

Wayne from Oz.

[Paul Davenport]

Wayne,
I've seen a shot taken of the train on Cascade, shot from across the gorge. Very different and very striking.
As for digging the hole on that rocky slope, a Friends veteran with experience of working in tricky places commented that a safety harness would be prudent for doing any work out there. I think he's right.
Paul