Thursday, June 21, 2012

1976 Milwaukee Road Wreck

Photos courtesy of Harley Kuehl.

As I promised, here's those pics of that MILW washout/derailment that occurred west of Othello WA. I'm certained it happened the summer of '76 or '77. Train was westbound, and as this was before the railroad plummeted into 10 mph track, I think timetable speed was 50mph; regardless, they had enuff momentum to continue thru the remainder of the cut to the next fill where the lead unit spilled down the hillside. This first pic is taken from one of the gons on the work train looking east. Our tie gang was called in from Plummer ID to help build the shoehorn track around the units. 


This 2nd pic shows the crew skeletonizing the track to be pulled over onto the new fill for the shoehorn...the ties that had been tossed against the fuel tanks would be used in that shoehorn (panel tracks were not the norm yet).

This next pic is where the train buckled and derailed about ten cars behind the power; light TT flats, spilling their containers down the fill east of the washout in the cut.


7 comments:

MB Line said...

Cool pictures!

Anonymous said...

I see the 146 & 138; I wonder what the lead unit was.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for these Milwaukee Road photos. It was always neat to go to eastern Washington, even in 1979, because the trains still had long stretches of relatively fast track. The track over the Cascades, however, was shot. The ties literally looked like piles of damp, rotting toothpicks.

Oh how I miss that railroad...

Anonymous said...

I was finally able to find the box of goodies....the lead Milwaukee unit was #171.

Harley Kuehl

Unknown said...

171 is still running as W&LE 6381.

Unknown said...

171 still running as W&LE 6381.

SDP45 said...

Amazing to think of, Fred!

Dan