The Unabandoned Routes: Pacific Northwest Railroads

From fast freights to Amtrak, explore the resilient, active rail networks of Oregon and Washington. See the stunning photojournalism of D.C. Jesse Burkhardt!

The Unabandoned Routes: Pacific Northwest Railroads serves as an essential companion work to 2025’s The Art of Abandonment: Railroad Abandonments in the Pacific Northwest, also published by America Through Time.

With this new book, the overall theme shifts from abandoned rail lines to railroad routes still active across the Northwest. This photojournalistic work features 165 photographs from recent decades, along with extensive captions, to detail operations in the region’s transportation network.

Across five chapters, author and photographer D. C. Jesse Burkhardt takes us on a visual journey through a territory that includes Oregon and Washington, as well as parts of Idaho and California, to capture the ongoing evolution of the rail system.

Highlighted here are fast freights on BNSF’s and Union Pacific’s mainline tracks, shortlines hauling a few cars to serve a customer or two on backwater branches, sleek Amtrak passenger trains transporting riders around the region, and a brief glimpse at rail activities in neighboring states and Canadian provinces to underscore similarities in history and operations.

The Unabandoned Routes spotlights dynamic movement in the contemporary landscape, celebrating the resilience of the Northwest’s railroad lines and the companies that manage them.