What is a switching district? Simply put, a switching district is a section of railroad, generally located in an urban core, whose purpose is to deliver goods to and from a number of industries and warehouses. They were usually built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and represented the peak of transportation technology at the time. Often they were constructed in streets, using what is known as street trackage, where the trains would share the roadway with wagons and later automobiles.

Switching districts almost always cut through the heart of the oldest industrial areas of a city. They are the lifeblood, the arteries, of the industries that built these districts. Without them, cities like Portland would never have achieved economic superiority in the Gilded Age. In this they are one of the most important, key elements in the creation and rise of the great metropolitan areas of the United States.

As the 21st Century dawns, much of the industry that made cities such as Portland a powerhouse is now gone. Switching districts that once knitted across the urban fabric of cities are fast disappearing under a layer of condominiums, boutique stores, and entertainment districts. While redevelopment is surely something that many cities truly need, in the process something precious of their history is being lost. Past generations saw these districts in service; future generations won't even know they were ever there. It is up to today's generation to preserve their memory, before it is too late.

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Portland is an old city, having been founded in 1845, and as such early on became the second most important industrial center on the U.S. Pacific Coast. With significant manufacturing, milling, port, and distributing businesses, the arrival of the railroad meant the creation of a number of switching districts, mostly within the Downtown and Central Eastside urban cores.

This project will focus on photographically preserving the industrial architecture of these switching districts. Its concentration will be on lines which were viable enough to survive into the post war period, as defined by the brackets of the end of World War Two (1945), and the beginning of railroad deregulation in 1979. It will geographically focus primarily on the oldest sections of the city, both active and abandoned, hoping to document them before they disappear completely.

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There have been many railroads serving Portland over the years, and in addition, the corporate politics of mergers and takeovers has been so complex that attaching a line to the name of only a single builder is nearly impossible. Labeling each with every railroad whose fingers touched it, however, is very cumbersome.

For the purposes of clarity, we will be identifying lines with their owners in the Postwar era. These "players" are as follows:

Northern Pacific Terminal Co. (NPT)
Owned by the three major railroads of Portland -- 40% by UP, 40% by NP, 20% by SP -- the NPT Co.'s main charge was operating Portland Union Station, along with its associated mail and express facilities, its coachyard, and transfer traffic between the Hill aligned roads and those aligned with Harriman. NPT's facilites were almost exclusively on the West side. Today the NPT Co. is known as the Portland Terminal Railway, and is still a joint terminal company, though it no longer manages Union Station.

Portland Traction. (PTC)
Owned originally by the city's power utility, the Portland Traction was the interurban remnant of a once extensive electrified passenger railroad. Its standard-gauge track was almost exclusively on the East side, and was purchased from the local bus company in 1963 by UP and SP jointly. The PTC effectively ceased to exist in the late 1980s/early 1990s when it abandoned large portions of it's line; what remains was sold to East Portland Traction, an independent operator, who today runs the line as the Oregon Pacific.

Southern Pacific. (SP)
The 800 pound gorilla of Oregon, SP had the most extensive holdings in the city. It built -- or bought out -- both on the East and West banks, but didn't venture further north than Union Station. Non-mainline portions of its switching lines are primarily abandoned, with some sections surviving in non-freight capacities. SP was absorbed by the Union Pacific in 1996.

Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway. (SP&S)
The latecomer to the Portland rail scene, the SP&S was James J. Hill's attempt to break open a Harriman monopoly state, and it largely worked. SP&S inherited a portion of the NP's pre-Stampede Pass mainline north out of Portland on the Columbia's South bank, as well as acquiring switching districts primarily on the West side of the Willamette by purchasing the United Railways and the Oregon Electric. It also had limited East side operations near Belmont Street thanks to an agreement with U.P.. The SP&S was absorbed by BN in 1970, and is now part of the BNSF Railway, though what little of its Portland industrial tracks that survive are now operated by short-line Portland & Western.

Union Pacific. (UP)
Having secured the city's plum jewel, the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company, just prior to the turn of the 20th century, the UP had its primary switching areas on the East side. Most of these districts are now gone, victims of progress; what remains is still operated by U.P.  

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