Winter Logging - Afterthought
Pete,
There's not too much call for a switchback. While we have some hills here in Minnesota, especailly in the northern woods, they hardly compare to the Pacific Northwest. That's one reason why so much of the logging here was done with regular rod engines (4-4-0s and 2-6-0s). I'm basing this both on my own experience with the terrain, and the locomotive rosters provided in Frank King's book, Minnesota Logging Railroads. What geared power that was used, was used primarily because of its ability to handle the poor quality of the temporary track in the woods.
Incidentaly, not all of the logging was done in the winter here. In the same book, there is a picture of a "Big Wheel" being used in the Red River area during warmer weather. Should I decide against the winter motif, another concept that I have considered is a "portage" railroad. King refers to such a line being operated by the Swallow and Hopkins railroad. Logs were brought from the woods to a lake, boomed and floated across the lake where they were picked up by the portage railroad. The portage line railed them about four miles to another lake where they were again floated across to another rail loading site on the NP. Additionally, the towboats for booming the logs across the lakes were equipped with track and could serve double duty as car ferries to get equipment and supplies into and out of the woods. Obviously this would not be a winter operation.
Rick