The route was established by 1911 and was operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad until the early 1990's when the Port bought the line. Train travel continued for several more years until the Port was forced to shut down service after a rough winter in 2007. Storms and severe flooding brought on massive landslides in the rugged Salmonberry River Canyon and damages were too expensive to repair. Most recently, hiking and exploring the tracks has become the new favorite activity for many curious hikers and rail fans:
We drove into the Cochran "Trail Head" via Timber and found a parking spot about mid-morning. The road was in pretty good shape and had been plowed a while back when the snow was deeper. Cochran was a mill site/railroad station named after a Judge Joseph Cochran and Henry Cochran. The old mill pond is under the same name and still houses some remains from the operation on the shore across from the tracks:
The tracks head NW alongside the banks of Pennoyer Creek until they reach the first tunnel on the trip(Tunnel #24)
Exploring the top of the tunnel:
The ghost of the tunnel wasn’t happy to see us:
Passing through the mountains on the tracks will become more difficult when the alders and salmonberry leaf out later this year. I bet it would be pretty though:
There have been some creative and resourceful paths taken to ease travel on some of the smaller trestle bridges:
The route begins to follow the Salmonberry River heading SW after it curves through tunnel #24. The Salmonberry is beautiful to watch as it flows far below the rail grade. Pretty soon we were marveling at the trestle bridge over Big Baldwin Creek and the water tanks:
The views looking down the Salmon Berry River were fantastic too:
Don’t look down:
Jojo is in the upper left of this pic way down the bridge:
There are these crazy old benches on the outside of the railing:
Life on top of the rail post:
The other water tank on the opposite side of the bridge and a box:
There was a lot of evidence of animal activity along the tracks:
The line raps in and out of the Wolf Creek drainage for a little ways where you can see the tracks suspended in mid-air on the west side of the canyon(upper left)
A little mid-air action on the east side too:
Here is what the spot I was standing in looks like from the other side of the creek, you can see the tracks a ways up the slide:
The line passes through another tunnel just before it spans over Wolf Creek on another awesome bridge:
More damage on the west side:
I scrambled down to Wolf Creek for a bit to check out a truly awesome lunch spot:
The crystal clear waters of Wolf Creek:
Rough skin on the way back up:
We headed a little further along the tracks and decided to turn around. But first we had a little snack:
It was a great day to be a:
I have seen some of the tracks from Mohler to Nehalem Falls and bit up from there but the parts around Belding and Enright will be new to me. 
