1911 Marengo Wreck

May 30, 1911

Undated Marengo Views

Photos by Don Lahr.

Marengo Station Map

Courtesy of Mark Borleske and the Cascade Rail Foundation.

1920s Marengo Views

Photos by John Barriger III. 

Likely late 1920s. Gary Dunn, a railroad expert from the area, suggested the date "because of the 

lack of a grain elevator that shows up in the distance of the old Marengo school house photos that I have."

1977 Cow Creek Trestle View

Photo by Bill Cleveland.

Freight Train Delay Reports

Guest post by Allen Miller.

Here are some Freight Train Delay Reports, these are all out of Malden to Othello in the 1950's.

This first one is an extra west out of Malden to Othello in 1957 with three GP9's, only real delay was in setting out a hot box car at Rock Lake.

Here's another Extra West out of Malden in 1955 with quite a bit of work along the way. He picked up cars at Ewan, Revere, Ralston, Lind and Warden. He had set out and pick up at Marengo and a set out at Pizarro, which must have all been wheat traffic. He had L.C.L. (Less than Car Load) freight at Lind, which was probably unloaded into the depot freight room, which qualifies this run as Way Freight, which was a higher rate of pay than through freight or Time Freight. I like the conductor's notation at the bottom that says He Picked Up Everything at Warden Except the Depot.

Here is another Extra West with three GP9 units in 1957. This was a big train, he left Malden with 156 cars, 52 loads, 104 empties, and arrived Othello with 191 cars, 86 loads, 105 empties, He set out a hot journal car at Lavista and had work at Marengo and Warden enroute.

And Dave Sprau explained the oddness of this one:
"On Nov 2-79 Milw was shut down but I suppose this train found itself stranded around Othello. Looks to me like regardless of "shutdown" it needed getting rid of, so was delivered to the UP at Marengo and probably went to Hinkle- rather than the usual "Spokane" - using UP from there. The conductor probably never had a situation like this before, and his time of departure at Marengo is their "Taxi" time and he merely is advising that their actual hours of service ran out when the highway vehicle was around Ritzville headed for Othello. If so, 1'45" for the taxi trip. looks to me like perfect timing if the Taxi took them to a place to eat (Ritzville?) enroute..."

Marengo Views

Photographer unknown. Date unknown.

Rob Leachman commented:
"Here you can see 200 at left on the Milw Rd and 205 at right down on the UP. I am sure the UP Asst. Supt. in Spokane would have been none too happy at this practice. The day I allowed it the Milw 205 train went past Marengo yard limits getting out of 200's way (there was a carload of Olympia beer 200 had to dig out of the UP interchange, so 200 had to get completely past the interchange key) and it threw the UP block signals to red all the way down to Ankeny. The UP section gang called the signal maintainer to investigate. I thought I would get fired, but fortunately 205 backed up before the maintainer got on the scene."

1930s Marengo

Courtesy of the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library.