Will the Cycle Be Unbroken?

Grain transportation in the Pacific Northwest has evolved within a climate pushing the progression of technology, bookended by an ironic conservatism. From over-the-road hauls by wagons and animals, to steamboats then railroads, and finally, at the behest of massive federal subsidies, slackwater barges, farmers embraced each new transportation option with a stoic, should-have-happened-earlier, smugness. Nothing represents this cycle of technological change better than the PCC's Hooper Turn, seen here passing Lower Monumental Dam, a concrete monolith of controversy.

Prior to the creation of rip-rap shorelines and untold millions of federal dollars needed to make a tame stair-step out of one of the West's wild rivers, locals ran out to numerous elevators gathering the harvests and collecting loose car loads into mainline trains, destined for export elevators at deepwater ports.

Today, the Hooper Turn operates on state-owned trackage, carrying state-owned covered hoppers to a barge reload at Wallula, on federally subsidized slackwater. Federal subsidies beget state subsidies, but for the first time in nearly a century, rail and navigation are working together. The cycle continues . . . .