Columbia
and Cowlitz Railway - (en)
The Columbia and Cowlitz Railway (AAR reporting marks CLC), is a wholly
owned subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser Company, and is headquartered in Longview,
Washington; the railroad serves an 8˝ mile (14 km) route from the
Weyerhaeuser Company mill in Longview to the junction just outside the
city limits of Kelso. From there, traffic is either switched to the
Weyerhaeuser Woods Railroad where it is transported to Weyerhaeuser's
Green Mountain Sawmill at Toutle or it is switched to the BNSF/Union
Pacific joint main line for movement to either Portland, Oregon, or
Seattle.
CLC was incorporated on April 9, 1925 and the line was constructed between
1926-1928. The railway is a wholly owned subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser
Company. The railway owns a fleet of 500 freight cars including a mix of
boxcars, centerbeam lumber cars, and flat cars. A fleet of three EMD GP20
diesel locomotives, which are numbered 700-702, provide road power for the
CLC. One caboose, numbered 6, provides tail end coverage of trains because
CLC does not employ flashing rear end devices (FREDs).
All CLC freight cars are painted a navy blue color with white lettering
and the CLC's locomotives are painted navy blue with white lettering and
white pinstripes across the top quarter of the bodies and across the frame
sill. The lone caboose is painted safety yellow with black lettering. A
signature safety feature of CLC's locomotives is the blue strobe light on
the roof of the locomotives. CLC chooses blue as their safety light color
because of the large number of yellow and red flashing safety lights
around the Weyerhaeuser mill in Longview.
