This site features daily historical railroad posts from the Big Bend/Columbia Plateau region of Washington state. As a personal site, this is my online filing cabinet of interesting things I've come across about railroading in the area. Thanks for stopping by!
Thursday, October 8, 2020
Wednesday, October 7, 2020
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Monday, October 5, 2020
Sunday, October 4, 2020
Saturday, October 3, 2020
The Day Of Two Horseshoes
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."
Friday, October 2, 2020
Thursday, October 1, 2020
Peach Branch Newspaper Clippings
Guest post by Ted Curphey.
Doing more research into Great Northern Railway's Bluestem-Columbia
River branchline that was graded but not finished with track. Here is a
full set of articles from the Spokesman Review and Spokane Daily
Chronicle newspapers detailing the acquisition of land and initial
construction in late 1911 through the troubles with landslides and
washouts 1912-1914 to when GN gave up on the branch in 1915. GN briefly
looked at the branch again in 1922, but that was when the idea of the
Grand Coulee Dam came to life, forever sealing the fate of the proposed
branchline.
Sept 29th, 1911
Oct 13th, 1911
Nov 10th, 1911
Dec 4th, 1911
Dec 8th, 1911
Jan 13th, 1912
Jan 28th, 1912
Mar 8th, 1912
June 9th, 1912
June 29th, 1912
July 5th, 1912
Oct 4th, 1912
Oct 27th, 1912
Dec 1st, 1912
Dec 12th, 1912
Dec 28th, 1912
Jan 15th, 1913
Mar 10th, 1913
Dec 25th, 1913
Mar 18th, 1914
March 21st, 1914
Nov 30th, 1914
Dec 14th, 1914
Dec 16th, 1914
March 24th, 1915
April 12th, 1915
Aug 11th, 1916
Feb 3rd, 1922
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