Capitol Boom Co.
of
Olympia WA
Typical of log dumps of the 1950's in the Puget Sound area, is the Capitol Boom Co. log dump in Olympia. This Boom Co. had contracts with numerous lumber and paper mills to unload their logs and place then in log booms for delivery by tow boat.
The length of the rollway is bordered by the browlog, which took some considerable punishment as the logs rolled and tumbled over it and into the water.
The flat cars used for loading logs are quite varied. Mostly they were skeleton flats. Many of these are still in use today (1975) on logging railroads, and for the most part, are of the wooden sill variety. The ones pictured here are NP 41' cars with steel sills. Note the bunk on each end on which the logs lay. Any log that would lay on both bunks was called a bunk log. With bunk logs on the bottom, shorter logs could be placed on these. Now Capital Boom, as with many others, dumped into tidewater, and the water depth was tied very closely to the tides.
Occasionally a conference was called for to solve a problem presented by the tides!
All photos are thumbnails linked to larger images around 150k, as they have a lot of good modeling detail in them!
Photos and text by F. B. Thompson
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