Othello Turntable View

Photo by Wade Stevenson.

F-Units at Davenport, WA

Courtesy of Tom Carver.

August 16, 1981

"The first time I encountered the Central Washington local was this same eastward train about 10 miles west of here, while driving the return leg of my delivery route out of Seattle. Every second day out I would return from either Coeur d'Alene or Spokane via U.S. Route 2, which followed the tracks, to my last delivery in Wenatchee. This was the first train I saw on the line and I was surprised that they were using F-Units. It was four-axle-only territory, which made sense, and the F's were out of the Parkwater (Spokane) based motive power pool, which also supplied these same units for the Marias Pass helpers. I turned around and followed it back here to Davenport, where he switched. Amazing how much infrastructure and equipment still remained in the 1980's."

New GP9s At Othello

Photo by Wade Stevenson.

1954

SD7s At Othello

Photo by Wade Stevenson.

1953

Warden Switcher Departing Othello

Guest post by Ryan Reed.

August 1965

This extremely rare photograph shows the Warden Switcher departing Othello in August 1965. The switcher ran between Othello and Warden peddling loaded ice reefers from Warden. The flatcar and load (probably for Stone & Conners) is unusual.

I did two oral history interviews with brakemen who worked the job - both said it was long and boring as they waited for reefers to be loaded. Other times the Warden Switcher would have to make a side trip to Tiflis to rescue the Mosey, dead on hours.

So much history, on the brink of being lost.

BN 604 Approaching Crater

Courtesy of Blair Kooistra.

Blair says:

"Here's the big view of the former Great Northern's climb out of the side canyon above Trinidad siding, east of Wenatchee, as train #604, using an assigned Wenatchee-Spokane-Wenatchee one-day turn crew, emerges from Tunnel 11 and steps out onto the narrow ledge above the "crater" below the west end of Quincy siding on September 17, 1991.

"The railroad is on a 0.8% gradient here, which it uses to climb away from the Columbia River to reach to Columbia Plateau at Quincy. Back behind the tunnel is the famous Trinidad Horseshoe curve.

#604 was the "Red Dog Ore" train hauling zinc concentrate (If I remember correctly) mined in Alaska and transported to Everett bound for the big Teck Resources smelter at Trail, British Columbia. Ore was hauled in rebuilt woodchip cars with reinforced floors, backhauling the chip load from the Everett area. The crew was an assigned turn, Wenatchee to Spokane and timed to catch hotshot train #3 back to Wenatchee in 12 hours. This made #604 one of the hottest eastbounds on the Columbia River subdivision."