I had some time today, so off to the PT for some photos.
A brief note, please do not confuse the Peninsula Terminal Co. (Reporting marks PT) with either the Portland Terminal Railroad Company (Reporting marks PTRC) or Portland Traction (Formally the East Portland Traction Company, reporting marks EPTC).
The Red line is the PT and it's connection to both the BNSF and UP. Here's a closer look.
A Brief History. The PT was constructed to connect the stockyards with the SP&S line between Portland and Vancouver. At some point the stockyards spun the railroad off. Local class 1 roads were offered the PT, but the line ended up remaining independant.
Today, the core of PTs business seems to be their transload facility across the street from the Expo Center (To the east of the BNSF line). They also offer contract locomotive servicing for other railroads.
Today, we go to the west side of the BNSF main.
The PT ducks under the BNSF main, crosses N. Portland Road and runs alongside N. Suttle road. There are five spurs to four customers along Suttle. We'll work our way from the end of the road (At Port of Portland's gated access road) back towards Portland Rd.
First, is Supreme Perlite. The switchstand for their spur bears the number "160" on it's target.
They have a truck loading or unloading structure built out of recycled shipping containers. Very modelgenic. No cars spotted here today, and in fact the rails look very rusty. No idea how often they get traffic.
Here's the structure
And another shot from closer to the gate. The track disappears to the left of the structure.
Our next spur is marked "161" on it's target. It is one of two for our next customer, Ecoservices.
This spur had a couple of covered hoppers spotted deep inside the property, and it was difficult to get good photos from outside the fence on Suttle Rd. I could make out PCN 1011 on this covered hopper. There were another two or three spotted behind it inside the spur.
The next spur ( marked "162" on the target) is to the East of Ecoservices. This is the busiest spot.
I count ten tanks, all with TILX or GATX reporting marks, in this spur. Off-spot, the PT crew has left another six on the track next to Supreme Perlite. Cars spotted along Suttle Road were TILX 100772, 100770, 100714, 100686 GATX 5620, 6460. Just inside the fence on the east spur I could make out TILX 100710, GATX 6235, but none of the 8 other numbers. These are all DOT 111 tanks, and they all are marked with some variation of "Leased to Rhodia"
Per Google maps, this industry was called Rhodia Inc. Per the Eco services website, at http://www.eco-services.com/ there were several corporate owners before the current arrangement was achieved in 2014.
Further web research shows this plant to ship Alum for wastewater treatment, and is a terminal for sulphuric acid.
At this point, I ran out of room on my camera's memory card. So, on to our next adventure for the day.
I did confirm that the next two spurs are used. There is an oil reprocessor, and a sandblasting abrasive manufacturer. But not right now.
We'll go further East along Suttle Rd. Later.
