Thursday, November 14, 2024

Milwaukee 21 At Othello

Courtesy of Blair Kooistra.

Blair says:

"Another view of the Milwaukee Road #21 and sister parked at the Othello roundhouse in August, 1978.
For as much grief as the railroad got--and justifiably--for their worn physical plant, it's plain to see in this view that the workers at the Othello Roundhouse took great pride in the spic-and-span appearance of their workplace. The tidy servicing facility wasn't the oily swamp that, for instance, Tideflats had. This isn't to cast aspersions on the workers at Tacoma--they had a HUGE facility that had become far bitter than the space required, and upkeep of the property wasn't the top priority. But Othello didn't seem to have a weed growing where it shouldn't."


4 comments:

Kurt Moose said...

Dang, to be there back then and hanging out!
Wade Stephenson was known to wash locomotives-by hand! He took great pride as well as the other workers in the Roundhouse. There's a pic of them washing an old, grimy, dirty FT in his book. That took a lot to wash them!

Proud till the end!

SDP45 said...

I wish his photos were available for the public to see.

Kurt Moose said...

Yeah, his book barely touches the gems he photographed!

SDP45 said...

And said book, while full of amazing photos, has lousy captions. Why the author didn't reach out to the large number of folks who would have happily written up something for him...