Courtesy of Blair Kooistra.
September 2020
Blair says:
"As the Bureau of Reclamation opened up a new region of irrigation west of Othello and Moses Lake in the early 1960s, Milwaukee Road spent a huge sum for the time--a "Million Dollars," as Dr. Evil would say--to build a 6 miles branch from its mainline between Othello and Beverly up one of the few natural breaks in the basalt cliffs along Crab Creek and to the new community of Royal City. Expectations were sky high, but the traffic reports I've seen of the line never broke more than a few hundred carloads off the branch a year, farmers preferring to truck their business to Othello, 22 miles away, or just ship by truck, using the Milwaukee's service as a way to depressing trucking rates.
"The line was a pretty incredible piece of engineering, including a 3 percent grade and a 10 degree horseshoe curve. Milwaukee generally only operated it with the Othello switch job when cars needed to be spotted or pulled.
"Amazingly, the branch--and the mainline connecting it to Othello--survived the abandonment, purchased by the state, which essentially neglected its potential. The Port of Royal Slope recently purchased it and secured a government loan to improve the entire line, hoping for a resurgence that never took place since it was built. Already, over 300 cars have been shipped this year.
"I lucked out on shooting a Milwaukee train on the branch in 1978. Today, armed with a drone, I did some aerial studies of the horseshoe curve below Royal City. And here are a few photos circa 1978."
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