Monday, October 28, 2013

Milwaukee Road Moses Lake Station Area Plans

As drawn by the Milwaukee Road, then transferred to the Burlington Northern, and updated to the time of purchase by the Washington Central.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

1949 CW Passenger Train

Amazing to me how photos like this come out of the woodwork. I put the word out that I am looking for photos, and this gem appears.

1949 photo of a passenger train on the CW branch. Photo label states this is one crossing west of Hartline.

Bruce Butler adds the following about the picture: "That would be train 305 and I believe the caption is correct.  Westbound, it is bit of a downgrade approaching the crossing.  2193 is a hand-fired Q-4 Pacific, standard CW and P&L passenger power in that era.  By the time I was in circulation the only NP Pacifics I saw was the 2256 and 2260, both class Q-6.  2256 in fact handled the last CW passenger train in March, 1954."


Saturday, October 26, 2013

Friday, October 25, 2013

GN 2037 At Wenatchee

Image courtesy of Dora Shirk.

Great Northern R-1 class 2-8-8-2 No. 2037, built at Hillyard (Spokane) between 12-19-1927 and 2-6-1928, with boilers provided by Puget Sound Machinery Depot. Assigned to the Spokane Division, about the time this photo was taken in 1949, it was retired in September 1955 and sold for scrap to Paper Calmenson and Company on 11-20-1955. Info from the book "Steam Locomotives of the Great Northern Railway," by Middleton & Priebe.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Construction of the Milwaukee Road Bridge at Beverly, WA in 1908

Guest post by James E. Lancaster.

Before my mother passed away she gave me ten photos taken in 1908 during the construction of the Milwaukee Road's railroad bridge across the Columbia River at Beverly, Washington.  She said her father (my grandfather), James H. Wilson, had worked at the construction site with his drilling rig.  She believed he was in several of the photos.  I stuck the photos away in a box and just came across them recently. The envelope containing the photos has "Pictures of Pop's drill on the Columbia River" written on it.

All of the photos are very faded.  I have used Photoshop to restore them as best I can.

My grandfather would have been 42 years old in 1908.  He and his family probably lived in Ritzville, WA at the time since my mother was born there in 1907.  My grandfather died in 1959 when I was 21 years old.

The man on the right looks very much like my grandfather. The machine on the right behind the floating crane looks like a steam-powered drilling rig or pile driver.  It may have been his rig since well drilling was his profession.

The man on the right in the hat may be my grandfather. 





The man standing with his back to the camera could be my grandfather. He is dressed the way my grandfather dressed when I would see him 40 years later.

The steam-powered drilling rig or pile driver visible on the right in Photo 346 is now on the left. 





Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Fruit And Vegetable Transit In The Pacific Northwest In 1934

 The following were found in NP General Managers File 2554-20. Letters sent in response to a query regarding plans in operation for accumulating carload of fruit and vegetables and assembling the refrigerator traffic into trains. Request from Mr. Charles Donnelly, Chairman, Pacific Northwest Division Western Railroads.
The General Managers files surrounding this file seem to deal with the development of regional railroad routes. This file asked for responses on how fruit and vegetable traffic in the Washington, Idaho, Oregon areas were handled by each railroad. 

(Only the GN version is presented here. I'd like to find who transcribed this and thank them.--Dan)


Great Northern Railway

State of Washington

Points at which fruit and vegetable loading necessitate the supplying of refrigerator cars as follows:

East and North of Spokane
SC&P Railway
Spokane to Wenatchee
Wenatchee to Tacoma
Good- Hopkins spur 4 miles north of Northport
Millwood
Stratford
Monitor
Excelsior
Soap Lake
Cashmere
Dalton
Ephrata
Dryden
Marble
Dishman
Quincy
Peshastin
Grand Forks, B.C.
Apple Center
Trinidad
Leavenworth
Meyers Falls
Opportunity
Ohio Colony Spur
Snohomish
Denison
Vera
Malaga
Monroe
Davies Spur
Flora
Wenatchee
Fryelands
Mead
Greenacres

Kent
Hillyard
Spokane Bridge

Auburn
Spokane
McGuires

Puyallup

Post Falls

Sumner

Moscow





Everett to Blaine
Wenatchee to Oroville
Mansfield Branch
Burlington
All stations
Palisades
Bellingham





    For the territory north of Spokane and on Spokane, Coeur d' Alene, & Palouse Railway,  the empty cars are conditioned , and, if the car orders call for it, are iced at Hillyard and distributed to the loading stations by local way freight trains. After loaded, the cars are picked up by local way freight trains and brought into Hillyard, from which point they are forwarded in time freight trains or added to an eastward fruit train if a fruit train happens to be fit to run.

   
    From the territory Stratford to Trinidad, dry cars are furnished from the supply at Hillyard. Iced cars, when ordered, are furnished from Appleyard and either handled on the local way freight trains or through freight trains depending on the service required. Loaded cars eastbound when ready are handled by the local way freight trains to Wilson Creek, where they are picked up by the time freights or eastward fruit trains. Loaded cars moving westward are handled to Appleyard and moved out of there on the westbound time freight trains.  
    Empty cars for the territory Ohio Colony Spur, Malaga, and Palisades are furnished from Appleyard, and when so ordered are iced at Appleyard Empty cars are distributed to the loading stations by local way freight trains and the loaded cars returned by local way freight trains to Appleyard where they are put into time freights or eastward fruit trains.
 

     For the territory Wenatchee west to Leavenworth and north to Oroville, the empty cars are furnished from the supply at Appleyard-Wenatchee Terminal and distributed by local way freight trains. The loaded cars are picked up by local way freight trains or mixed train and brought into Appleyard, from which time they are forwarded in time freight trains or eastward fruit trains. Ice houses are maintained at Wenatchee, Pateros and Oroville. Iced cars are distributed by local freight trains from Oroville south to Barker and sometimes as far south as Omak. Iced cars are distributed from Pateros to Okanogan and iced cars for the balance of the stations south of Okanogan and west to Leavenworth distributed from Appleyard-Wenatchee Terminal.

   

     A considerable portion of the soft fruits and cherries from the Wenatchee Valley district moved as passenger train freight. The empties are supplied from Appleyard-Wenatchee terminal, conditioned and iced for loading when so ordered. Empties are distributed by local way freight train and mixed trains and after loaded, brought by the same trains into Wenatchee for passenger train movement. 

Friday, October 18, 2013

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Winchester

Not much is left at Winchester, other than the station sign and memories. The produce company that used to ship occasional reefers of produce in the 1990s is still there, but the loading dock is falling down. Hard to believe that there used to be a depot and three other tracks in the wide spot. 
I'm guessing the middle tracks came out sometime in the BN era. The GN AFE's don't mention them coming out.









Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Winchester AFEs

This is a summary to the "Applications For Expenditures" (AFE) files which were project files for all purchases, construction or removal of facilities or equipment from Great Northern property. These files sometimes contain correspondence, invoices, blueprints and other project information, and often contain insight into events or changes in a specific area at a point in time.

As a summary, it does give a look into the changes made over the years.

From the GN-NP Archives.

1898 Extend passing track
1900 Construct private crossing
1903 Construct Right of Way cattle guard
1903 Install mail crane
1904 Construct private crossing
1904 Construct Right of Way fence
1904 Construct Right of Way cattle guard
1905 Install public Crossing
1905 Construct Right of Way fence
1906 Install public crossing
1906 Install public crossing
1908 Extend passing track and place portable depot
1914 Place 1620 feet of ROW Fence ½ mile west of Winchester
1914 Construct 950 foot extension to passing track
1922 Move section house to Columbia River
1951 Install culvert
1952 Provide easement for highway
1953 Extend industry track
1953 Construct temporary crossing
1955 Extend track for Ranch Produce
1959 Extend track 2
1962 Provide easement for ditch

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Difference of Decades Ephrata

From the "Spokane Chronicle."

May 23, 1955













View looking down from my vantage point on top of the grain elevator. Yes, I had permission to be here, and a chaperone.