INSIDE THE STEAMCARS FEW mansions contained the architectural luxuries abundant in the limiteds of the agebefore-streamlining. B&O's Martha Washington series of diners, introduced in 1923, featured a colonial decor, with leaded-glass windows, glass chandeliers, cloth-shaded wall lamps - plus broiled lamb chops on the menu. Blue chairs and carpet together with cream walls accented interior of UP's 30-seat, 1-drawing room parlors Meadow Violet and Wood Violet. Goldstriped dome seized passenger's attention in lounge refurbished by UP in 1934 for the Portland Rose - but what tops ceiling of Chicago Great Western wooden cafe-parlor car 160? MARKERS' END 7COAL thunders down out of the big wooden chute and into the tank of the Pacific heading C&EI's daytime Chicago-St. Louis flyer, the La Salle. But the pause is brief and the flagman is already running for the trap of the open-observation car. The time is 8:58 p.m. in Denison, Ia., on a June evening in 1928 and North Western's Corn King loads mail. The H-class 4-8-4 ahead will have the Omaha-Chicago overnighter into the city early enough to satisfy the Post Office Department but the businessmen aboard know their berths can be "occupied until 8 a.m." Gil Reid's artwork portrays the King's solarium-lounge. Steelsheathed (with imitation wood finish) 2-compartment, 2-drawing-room lounge of 1921. CASCADE PASSAGE-2 rica's longest tunnel In 1929 Jim Hill's wish was realized three required conductors. Each of A 5000-kilowatt power plant was on each end. Each pinion meshed with an axle gear; there were two gears on each driving axle. The two trucks of the locomotive were hinged together with an articulated joint. This was the only three-phase electrification in the Western Hemisphere. It was chosen because it was particularly suitable for regenerative braking, a system the railroad thought could be used in controlling westbound trains on the downgrade of the tunnel. This particular type of electric locomotive had to run at whatever road speed corresponded to the 375 rpm synchronous speed of the motors. Train tonnage could not be heavy enough to slow the motors below this speed or motor damage would result. The 375 rpm motor speed corresponded to a 15 mph road speed, and at this speed three electric locomotives could pull the steam engine and about 1600 tons of train up the 1.7 per cent grade from Wellington to Cascade Tunnel Station. The electrification was opened on July 10, 1909. Although it was off to an auspicious start, the ashcats were unfortunately back to shoveling coal within a month. On August 11, 1909, both water wheels at the Leavenworth power station failed. This piece of bad luck kept the electric locomotives out of service until September 9, when they were finally able to haul trains through the bore again. For a while the electrification seemed to be jinxed. Minor troubles cropped up, as they will with any new system, all through the winter of 1909-1910. Then with winter almost ended, tragedy struck not only at the electrification but at the entire railroad operation of Wellington, causing the loss of many lives. As had so often been the case in the past, snow was the killer. On February 22, 1910, train No. 26, an eastbound local passenger train, arrived in Skykomish from Seattle to find an order holding it until a rotary plow arrived from the east. No. 2, the Oriental Limited, reached Sky a short time later. At 10:15 p.m. the rotary started back east followed by No. 2 and No. 26. Although they were somewhat late, they all passed through Cascade Tunnel without trouble. No. 26 left Wellington about 1 a.m. on the 23rd. No. 26 met No. 25, the westbound passenger train, and No. 27, the westbound mail train, east of the tunnel and arrived in Leavenworth about 6 a.m. on the 23rd. No one knew that No. 26 was to be the last train through Wellington for 16 days, nor was there any hint that the two westbound trains which No. 26 had met would be death traps for 84 passengers and crewmen in what was to be America's worst snowslide disaster. Although No. 26 had reached and passed Wellington safely, the track between Scenic and Wellington had been blocked by several slides within an hour or two. When the westbound trains arrived at Wellington they were headed into the passing siding to await clearing of the track to the west. There they lay for days while the storm raged. East of Cascade Tunnel, Tumwater Canyon had also been blocked by hundreds of slides and Wellington was isolated from the rest of the world, except by telegraph. On the 23rd, two Mallets started west from Leavenworth to attempt to smash through the slides. After 12 hours of hopeless attempts, they returned to Leavenworth to await a rotary plow. The rotary did not arrive from the east until the 27th. It immediately headed west and by the evening of February 28 the plow train had reached Merritt, 15 miles east of Wellington. They had been in telegraphic communication with Wellington up to this time. When they attempted to raise Wellington on the morning of March 1, the wire was ominously dead. An unseasonable rainstorm had been raging on the west slope during the evening of February 28. On the hill above Wellington the snow was about 14 feet deep and the rain increased the danger of a slide. At 1:45 a.m. on March 1, without the slightest warning, the entire hillside above Wellington avalanched down onto the tracks and into the gulch, carrying everything with it. A wall of snow and debris 14 feet high, 2000 feet wide, and all of a half mile long quite literally picked up up the railroad and rolled it down into the valley. The mail train, the passenger train, three electric locomotives, a fourth electric locomotive which was in the inspection shed, a rotary plow, three steam locomotives, a considerable part of the overhead wiring, and part of Welling |