Scofield

A quiet gravel road bridging two major highways hides a forgotten railroad town

Rush hour in downtown Scofield

Short one today, mostly marred by all the places I couldn't go for one reason or another. I'm visiting Scofield, another former logging community and stop along the Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad (POTB). The POTB is also known as Pacific Railway & Navigation (PRN, colloquially Punk Rotten and Nasty). Some day, this will be the salmonberry trail connecting Banks to the coast.

The rail line has been abandoned since the storms of 2006. Many stretches of track are increasingly difficult to access and overgrown. Scofield is one such stop, although still easily reachable on gravel (Scofield Rd, naturally) that connects Hwy 47 to 26. Been to Seaside or Vernonia? You've driven past Scofield and probably didn't notice.

We start from Tophill and head south on the Banks-Vernonia Trail to Nowakowski Rd. From here, it's all gravel to the end.

The main town of Scofield was nestled between Scofield Rd, the train tracks, and the south portion of Nowakowski. It was named after Alva Scofield, who the internet describes as "an early pioneer". Based on other stops along the way, he likely owned the land that the railway cut through. He's apparently buried in Buxton Cemetery so I may have to stop by again.

Today, the area is all farms, both hobby and tree. In the 1930s, this area had an active train with passenger service, a post office, church, and general store.

1940 USGS map. The Post office had closed already.

Note how much longer the journey between Hwys 47 and 26 is by train vs car. The PNR was a series of endless hairpin turns while the roads were comparatively straight. I think it aptly demonstrates the limitations of rail transport through mountainous terrain. Freight trains are strictly limited to a 2.2% grade while trucks and passenger cars can tackle 8% and above.

As the crow flies, it's about 2.5 miles between Hwy 47 and 26 but the POTB takes over 4 miles sidewinding along slopes to cover that distance at a gentle grade. It also needs a few substantial trestle bridges to span the minor creeks without losing elevation. Roads end up shorter with fewer bridges and tunnels leading to quicker travel and lower maintenance costs.

Back in the railroad heyday, the town was situated along a bite in the tracks with the post office at one of the road crossings. We struggled to find the tracks at all until I opened up a LIDAR map.

Google maps may not include the POTB but the berm is clearly visible in the topography map.

Armed with the advanced imagery, we locate the old right of way:

Can't see it? The old crossing was at the little dip in this image. It looks like the rails across the road were dug up and filled in at some point. There was a stack of railroad ties in the ditch that were heavily overgrown. I think they've been left for over a decade.

Even up close, we weren't sure we'd found the rail line:

There's a rough line of newer trees that probably sprang up when the rail shut down (thus 20 years old) but it's not obviously a rail road track. We dug a little deeper:

A few feet off the road, we finally find the old rails as well as "No Trespassing" signs put up by the POTB. Since Tillamook Bay has no other jurisdiction within Washington County, this must be the rail we're looking for.

We carefully get back onto the road and head out. Where Scofield Rd meets 26, there's a barricade with an old logging road on the far side. I had hoped to continue on this path and join up to Ridge Rd, the gravel path that goes over the US 26 tunnel.

I judged it to be impassable with overgrowth. I'm sure there's plenty of more adventurous people that would be willing to carry their bikes through, but when I'm unclear on the ownership, I'm not going to go exploring, hoping for the best.

Instead, we turn back and explore the Scofield area some more by heading up Cape Horn Rd.

This road was on the map in the 1940s, although at the time, it continued all the way to the summit of Cape Horn. Today, while the summit is in the public forest, the area around it is private lumber land. We, the people, own a mountain but we're not allowed to visit thanks to Weyerhauser's restrictive policies.

We decide to take the road as high as we can go. Again, the hobby farms continue straight up the mountain:

There's active logging up here, too. However you feel about deforestation and clear cut agriculture, it is the best way to create a memorable view:

From the end of the road, we roll back to Scofield, then it's uphill back to Tophill.

Do I recommend a trip to Scofield? If you're a local history aficionado for hardcore rail fan, it's worth tacking on a visit on your way to the coast.

Gravel cyclists are always on the hunt for new routes but...I don't think this is it. The gravel quality is fine, but there are places with better vistas, thrilling descents and more fulfilling payoffs very close by (Bacona and Hayward for starters). The best I can say is that it's a great place if you want to see what 20 years of unmanaged encroaching forest can do to a century-old train track.

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