Western Railroad Discussion > Walla Walla to Dayton, WA questions

I paid a too-brief visit to the southeast corner of Washington State last month and surveyed the remains of the once extensive network of lines that surrounded Walla Walla, WA. Digging through maps and nosing around the web trying to sort out exactly what I had seen has left me with some questions I'm hoping someone here can answer, or point me to a good book or website covering the area.

1. This trackless depot in Walla Walla is now home to the Destination Grill, one of the better depot-turned-restuarants I've eaten in. Pictures on the walls inside seemed to indicate that this was the NP depot, and a 1940's Official Guide says UP had a separate station about a mile away. Questions: was the NP depot a stub-end station, or did the tracks out the south end reconnect with the line to Waitsburg and Dayton (or something else)? The yard that Watco shortline Palouse River & Coulee City uses today is west of the NP depot - was this the UP yard? Whereabouts was the UP depot located, and where was NP's yard? I found the carbarn for NP subsidiary Walla Walla Valley - did they have a separate yard up in there too somewhere?

2. UP and NP had separate lines between Walla Walla and Waitsburg, with UP's line going north then east and NP's line going east, then north. Both railroads served Dayton, east of Waitsburg, but what exactly was the arrangement between those points? Were there parallel lines, or did one road have trackage rights over the other? One reference I consulted seemed to indicate that UP had trackage rights over NP, but this page by the Dayton Historic Depot Society seems to indicate that UP got there first, which would suggest the opposite arrangement:

http://www.daytonhistoricdepot.org/about_us.html

The 1881 depot still standing trackside was evidently originally the UP depot - was it a joint agency, or did NP have a separate facility? One of the few pictures I've found of these lines is a color photo of an NP geep in front of this depot, which makes me wonder.

3. A bit west of the depot, the surviving track crosses the Touchet River on a bridge that appears to be built out of a couple of turntables. First of all, whose track/bridge was this (UP/NP)? Second, if these are turntables, anybody know where they served as turntables before they were moved to Dayton? Third, what's the local pronunciation of "Touchet?" I can think of half a dozen possibilities, all of which are probably wrong.

Today the NP line from Walla Walla to Waitsburg is gone, but Palouse River and Coulee City evidently still uses the UP line into Dayton. I saw grain elevators at a few places along the line, but only one customer in Dayton that looked like they get cars during the non-harvest season. Does any of the wheat harvest move by rail over this line any more, or does it all go by truck? If they do move grain by rail, when is the best time of year to see the action?

---

---

---

Evan,

I hope Blair K. or Mark E. come on the list to answer your questions, as they have done a lot of research on Walla Walla RRs. I worked as freight clerk, operator and agent for the UP in Walla Walla in the early 70s, so I can answer some per below. Mark E. or someone else will have to respond about the present, I am ignorant of current operations.

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I paid a too-brief visit to the southeast corner
> of Washington State last month and surveyed the
> remains of the once extensive network of lines
> that surrounded Walla Walla, WA. Digging through
> maps and nosing around the web trying to sort out
> exactly what I had seen has left me with some
> questions I'm hoping someone here can answer, or
> point me to a good book or website covering the
> area.
>
> 1. This trackless depot in Walla Walla is now home
> to the Destination Grill, one of the better
> depot-turned-restuarants I've eaten in. Pictures
> on the walls inside seemed to indicate that this
> was the NP depot,

Yes. Budd car passenger service into the 60s.

> and a 1940's Official Guide says
> UP had a separate station about a mile away.
> Questions: was the NP depot a stub-end station, or
> did the tracks out the south end reconnect with
> the line to Waitsburg and Dayton (or something
> else)? The yard that Watco shortline Palouse
> River & Coulee City uses today is west of the NP
> depot - was this the UP yard? Whereabouts was the
> UP depot located,

Even in the early 70s, UP's passenger depot was gone. The agency was located in a frame peaked-roof wood freight house alongside UP's yard.

> and where was NP's yard? I
> found the carbarn for NP subsidiary Walla Walla
> Valley - did they have a separate yard up in there
> too somewhere?
>
> 2. UP and NP had separate lines between Walla
> Walla and Waitsburg, with UP's line going north
> then east and NP's line going east, then north.
> Both railroads served Dayton, east of Waitsburg,
> but what exactly was the arrangement between those
> points?

One line of joint track between Waitsburg and Dayton, operated using a divided staff system. Locals from each RR came out of Walla Walla and picked up half the staff at Waitsburg. The first local to Dayton could not leave to return to Waitsburg until they saw the complete staff (i.e., the other RR's local had arrived in Dayton). The two RRs had separate trackage and stations in Dayton.

UP continued up to Turner, NP ended in Dayton.


> Were there parallel lines, or did one
> road have trackage rights over the other? One
> reference I consulted seemed to indicate that UP
> had trackage rights over NP, but this page by the
> Dayton Historic Depot Society seems to indicate
> that UP got there first, which would suggest the
> opposite arrangement:
>
> http://www.daytonhistoricdepot.org/about_us.html
>
>
> The 1881 depot still standing trackside was
> evidently originally the UP depot - was it a joint
> agency, or did NP have a separate facility? One
> of the few pictures I've found of these lines is a
> color photo of an NP geep in front of this depot,
> which makes me wonder.
>
> 3. A bit west of the depot, the surviving track
> crosses the Touchet River on a bridge that appears
> to be built out of a couple of turntables. First
> of all, whose track/bridge was this (UP/NP)?
> Second, if these are turntables, anybody know
> where they served as turntables before they were
> moved to Dayton? Third, what's the local
> pronunciation of "Touchet?" I can think of half a
> dozen possibilities, all of which are probably
> wrong.

Best regards,

Rob L.

Before it was the U.P. the tracks were originally OWR&N
I though the U.P. (OWR&N) ended at Dayton and the BN (NP) went to Turner.

The line(s) to Dayton have very interesting histories. I am not at all up to speed on the whole chronology. Seems to me, The UP line from Walla Walla to Waitsburg is the intact line. BN took the NP line out in the early 80s. The remaining track from Waitsburg to Dayton is actually the NP. I think the UP line Waitsburg to Dayton was taken out many years before. I recall a UP salesman telling me BN sort of "awarded" UP the NP line to Dayton.
When both Railroads ran to Dayton and UP to Turner they each had separate trackage upon entering Dayton. When I was younger I remember seeing quite a lot of interesting spurs all through the rail corridor there. From the mid-80s I have a slide in front of the Dayton depot with 2 tracks, now one. Further through the industrial section consisting of the Green Giant plant and the various grain elevators NP may of had one side of the corridor and UP the other. Looking at the track that is still there you can see the differences in the two by rail and switch stands. Questionable how long the line will stay in. Green Giant, AKA Seneca Foods is shut down and the grain moves truck/barge.
Anyone else with more history please add or correct me!
Bluesman

I don't really have any answers to your questions - but a few comments. The Destination Grill is very good. I think they are about the second one in the station since the station was converted. I get to Walla Walla a couple times a year on business and alway eat there.

Over the years I caught a UP train switching in Dayton and later on a Blue Mountain locomotive somewhere on the line. For the most part, I've not seen much action on the line. It always seemed that I was on my way from here to there, so never really had the area as a railfan destination.

Dan

I lived in the area for a few years prior to 1963. The UP depot was on the east side of the main street that goes between Walla Walla and College Place. This would be east of the current railyard. At that time the NP depot was stub ended and used for MOW cars. The NP track came into town somewhat N of the UP line and over near the prison (west of downtown)
Roger Beckett

Locals pronounce it "too-she"


Third, what's the local
> pronunciation of "Touchet?" I can think of half a
> dozen possibilities, all of which are probably
> wrong.

Bluesman

To most of us wet-siders, Walla Wall is two things...onions and prisons. Lately, a nice wine industry has emerged so a year ago my wife and I trekked over the Yakima and then Walla Walla to tour the wine industry. While we found some excellent wines, the industry really has a ways to go before it can call itself a tourist destination. We tend to confine our dining to lunch, and we missed the restaurant mentioned here in the depot. Dinner is usually in the nicest restaurant around...our coach!

There have been several magazine articles addressing the trains running between Walla Walla and south, but i think I read where that one was abandoned. There is a lot of action along the highway east of the tri-cities(Pasco, Kennewick and Richland, Wa)...which was a large classification yard...moving east towards Spokane. When I was in college, the North Coast Limited, which I took to and from school in Spokane for a year, stopped in the tri-cities and the S.P.and S. cars from Portland, Oregon were added I think the yard was a Spokane, Portland and Seattle operation.

Still a busy place,

Funny how a rail enthusiast can be absorbed in the history and operations of just about anyplace he visits. Happened to me in walla Walla, too, a few years ago, beginning with hour or two spent in local community historical museum about a block from the depot turned restaurant mentioned above, followed by additions to personal library upon return to home(across Bay from Evan).
Can't add much but most of what's been said here rings true.

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I paid a too-brief visit to the southeast corner
> of Washington State last month and surveyed the
> remains of the once extensive network of lines
> that surrounded Walla Walla, WA. Digging through
> maps and nosing around the web trying to sort out
> exactly what I had seen has left me with some
> questions I'm hoping someone here can answer, or
> point me to a good book or website covering the
> area.
>
> 1. This trackless depot in Walla Walla is now home
> to the Destination Grill, one of the better
> depot-turned-restuarants I've eaten in. Pictures
> on the walls inside seemed to indicate that this
> was the NP depot, and a 1940's Official Guide says
> UP had a separate station about a mile away.
> Questions: was the NP depot a stub-end station, or
> did the tracks out the south end reconnect with
> the line to Waitsburg and Dayton (or something
> else)? The yard that Watco shortline Palouse
> River & Coulee City uses today is west of the NP
> depot - was this the UP yard? Whereabouts was the
> UP depot located, and where was NP's yard? I
> found the carbarn for NP subsidiary Walla Walla
> Valley - did they have a separate yard up in there
> too somewhere?
>
> 2. UP and NP had separate lines between Walla
> Walla and Waitsburg, with UP's line going north
> then east and NP's line going east, then north.
> Both railroads served Dayton, east of Waitsburg,
> but what exactly was the arrangement between those
> points? Were there parallel lines, or did one
> road have trackage rights over the other? One
> reference I consulted seemed to indicate that UP
> had trackage rights over NP, but this page by the
> Dayton Historic Depot Society seems to indicate
> that UP got there first, which would suggest the
> opposite arrangement:
>
> http://www.daytonhistoricdepot.org/about_us.html
>
>
> The 1881 depot still standing trackside was
> evidently originally the UP depot - was it a joint
> agency, or did NP have a separate facility? One
> of the few pictures I've found of these lines is a
> color photo of an NP geep in front of this depot,
> which makes me wonder.
>
> 3. A bit west of the depot, the surviving track
> crosses the Touchet River on a bridge that appears
> to be built out of a couple of turntables. First
> of all, whose track/bridge was this (UP/NP)?
> Second, if these are turntables, anybody know
> where they served as turntables before they were
> moved to Dayton? Third, what's the local
> pronunciation of "Touchet?" I can think of half a
> dozen possibilities, all of which are probably
> wrong.
>
> Today the NP line from Walla Walla to Waitsburg is
> gone, but Palouse River and Coulee City evidently
> still uses the UP line into Dayton. I saw grain
> elevators at a few places along the line, but only
> one customer in Dayton that looked like they get
> cars during the non-harvest season. Does any of
> the wheat harvest move by rail over this line any
> more, or does it all go by truck? If they do move
> grain by rail, when is the best time of year to
> see the action?

Here are some outstanding books covering the history of railroading in eastern Washington:
1.) 'Across The Columbia Plain -Railroad Expansion in the Interior Northwest 1885-1893'
by Peter J. Lewty 1995 WSU Press
2.) 'To The Columbia Gateway -The Oregon Railway and the Northern Pacific, 1879-1884'
by Peter J. Lewty 1987 WSU Press
3.) 'Union Pacific Northwest -The Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company'
by Jeff Asay 1991 Pacific Fast Mail
4.) 'Smoke Along The Columbia'
by Jim Ehernberger & Francis Gschwind 1968 EG Publications

Things are quite different today than they were 30 years ago in this territory. I remember as a kid hearing the chant of the old N.P.(then BN) GP-9's struggling over the undulating terrain of the Palouse or watching a 'We Can Handle It' U.P. GP-30 fly along the Snake river with three CP engines in tow en route north to Spokane and Eastport, ID. The Walla Walla Valley Railroad is also a fascinating little collection of lines in and around Walla Walla. The WWV had tiny SW-1's that crept carefully over fragile, light rail and switched industries on hairpin curves.
Most, if not all, of the books listed above are out of print. However, they do turn up at AbeBooks.com and Powells.com from time to time.

rob_l Wrote:

> >
> > 1. This trackless depot in Walla Walla is now
> home
> > to the Destination Grill, one of the better
> > depot-turned-restuarants I've eaten in.
> Pictures
> > on the walls inside seemed to indicate that
> this
> > was the NP depot,
>
> Yes. Budd car passenger service into the 60s.


Incorrect. I believe NP passenger service ended 1955-ish. Heavyweight cars, pulled by steam, and at the end, a baldwin four-motor hood unit.

>
> > and a 1940's Official Guide says
> > UP had a separate station about a mile away.
> > Questions: was the NP depot a stub-end station,
> or
> > did the tracks out the south end reconnect with
> > the line to Waitsburg and Dayton (or something
> > else)? The yard that Watco shortline Palouse
> > River & Coulee City uses today is west of the
> NP
> > depot - was this the UP yard? Whereabouts was
> the
> > UP depot located,


The NP station was located along the branch to Dayton; the yard was a stub-end affair, curiously. The UP station, as Rob mentioned, was south of the current WATCO yard (ex-UP yard) around 1/2 mile, near where the wye junction of the line to Pendleton was located.

>
> > and where was NP's yard? I
> > found the carbarn for NP subsidiary Walla Walla
> > Valley - did they have a separate yard up in
> there
> > too somewhere?

WWV interchanged with the NP in a three-track yard near the state prison, called "Valley Yard." They didn't have much of a yard.



try here: www.wwvrailway.com for more information on Walla Walla railways.

a737flyer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> .... I think the (Pasco) yard was a Spokane, Portland and Seattle operation.


Kit, the Pasco yard was all Northern Pacific. The SP&S had no yards or switch engine jobs east of Wishram although the Snake River Turn and the Finley Turn operated out of Pasco and the Scribner Turn operated out of Spokane.

The SP&S motive power assigned to the Turns (later called Roadswitchers following working contract revisions) operating out of Pasco was nearly always one of the ALCO RS-2s (SP&S 60-62) specifically for the purpose of being able to provide passenger-protection power at that location. The RS-2s were equipped with the smaller-capacity steam generators that had originally come to the railroad in the SP&S 800-802. The RS-2s would be called on at Pasco in the event of a road failure of one of the EMD passenger units but, more often, would be used to power a First #1 out of Pasco. In the event that GN #31 suffered a serious delay of its scheduled arrival into Spokane but NP #25 was on time, or closer thereto, arriving into Pasco, the SP&S would run two sections of #1 between Pasco and Portland. If the delay was known sufficiently in advance, the standby diner would be deadheaded from Portland to Pasco on the prior evening’s #4 to provide food service on First #1 out of Pasco.

a737flyer Wrote:

> There have been several magazine articles
> addressing the trains running between Walla Walla
> and south, but i think I read where that one was
> abandoned.

There was a UP line south from Walla Walla to Pendleton. While it's no longer a through route, PCC operates the remaining track from Walla Walla as far as a frozen foods company in Weston, OR. Caught a WAMX GP38 towing a short string of mechanical reefers down that line on 10/21 after we visited the Dayton branch.

Thanks for the answers and links so far. And yes Steve, nothing focuses one's interest like actually visiting a place. I already want to go back.

The Walla Walla and Palouse areas were some of my favorite places to railfan, and are, as others have already pointed out, home to some facinating railroad history.

As for the Walla Walla lines, the BN abandoned their line from Wallula to Walla Walla sometime in the early 1980, probably about the time they abandoned Walla Walla to Waitsburg. They still had their own trackage though, and switcher, based around Walla Walla. I don't know if they got into town via trackage or haulage rights over the UP.

When the lines were spun off to Watco, the ex BN lines were technically the PCC, while the ex UP lines were BLMR. So, while the whole Walla Walla cluster was basically BLMR, closed BN customers in Walla Walla were technically PCC.

Watco then marketed the whole region as PCC, but still kept the PCC and BLMR separate for revenue and car accounting purposes. Once they sold the P&L and CW lines, however, they've now reversed themselves and run the Walla Walla cluster as BLMR, including the BNSF traffic.

I've never seen a single photo of a train between Dayton & Turner. When was this segment abandonned? CJ

trkinsptr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've never seen a single photo of a train between
> Dayton & Turner. When was this segment abandonned?
> CJ

This segment was abandoned in 1976. That portion of the branch between Waitsburg Jct. and Dayton was abandoned in June 1938 and UP operated over the NP from then until the sale of the branch.

Butch