Taken by the same trolley operator in 1944 as in the previous pic, this photo shows the Southern Pacific R.R. crossing over the Portland Electric Power interurban rails. The location is in Milwaukie, OR. (note the spelling, not to Ever be confused with that big Milwaukee city back east ! ) The view is looking north. The 4 lane highway on the right was only 7 years old. Known then locally as the "Super Highway", it was the first 4 lane intercity road in Oregon. Today it is Highway 99E and called McLoughlin Blvd.

The PGE power line structures are interesting, three sets of double poles for line switches on each side of a tap pole with a 57 kV line tap to a power line owned by the S.P. RR to serve a substation to power their electric rail lines to the southwest. The poles had to be high enough to cross over the railroad with proper clearance. The pole structure built at the same angle as the railroad alignment is of particular interest, since it has a vertical wire drop to a lower level for the tap line dead ends. A platform for a switch operator is visible on the closest pole set.

One other point I must stress is that all this high power line construction was done with people climbing poles! There were no boom and bucket trucks in use back then!