Shortline Railroads

Hard to beat an ex-NP GP-9 and ex-C&S SD-9 crossing a timber trestle in the Channeled Scablands of Eastern Washington - in 2015 and on a former NP brachline, even!  The Columbia Basin Ry. near Warden, WA.

Not long after I first developed a serious interest in railroading as a young teenager in the late 1970’s, I began to feel a particular attraction to shortline railroads. You can probably blame that on Doug Leffler, and maybe on Tony Koester, too. Doug was a prolific author in the pages of Railroad Model Craftsman, and Tony was that magazine’s editor at the time.

How I got bit by the shortline bug . . .

In January, 1981, RMC published two Leffler articles, one on the prototype Lenawee County Railroad, a shortline operating in southern Michigan, and one on Doug’s HO-scale tribute to that line, the Lenawee Central. I knew next to nothing about southern Michigan, but the idea of a compact prototype that could be modeled in a small space, like the small room where I had permission to build my own layout, was very compelling to me. Almost immediately, I started conceiving ideas on what my own HO-scale shortline railroad might look like.

My personal exposure to real shortline railroads was minimal. Growing up in Spokane, the only trains I saw on a regular basis were those of giants Burlington Northern and Union Pacific. But, I soon became aware of two shortline railroads not too far beyond Spokane, and on a couple family outings, I had the chance to see them for myself.

I had already visited one of them:  the St. Maries River Railroad (STMA) over in the Idaho panhandle. A family picnic to St. Maries in June, 1980 gave me a chance to photograph a former Milwaukee Road switching locomotive, along with a couple odd-ball rebuilt diesels. Unfortunately, it was too dark for my photos to turn out very well.

I had more luck the following summer when I rode an excursion on the Pend Oreille Valley Railroad (POVA) between Ione and Metaline Falls, WA. By that time, I at least recognized that the locomotive pulling our one-car train was an “Alco” – a product of the American Locomotive Co. – but I had no idea exactly how rare such a bird was, even at that time. Fortunately, those photos turned out a little better!

POVA's chop-nosed ex-SP RS-11:  "I had no idea exactly how rare such a bird was"

Both these railroads had sprung into being very recently as a result of the Milwaukee Road’s bankruptcy and the abandonment of its Pacific Extension. Some shippers on the Milwaukee’s more remote lines that depended heavily on rail service could not economically shift that traffic to trucks. In these two instances, they found ways to retain their rail service, either by buying the tracks and organizing their own railroad, as Potlatch Corp. did with the STMA, or in the case of the POVA, by encouraging the formation of a local government authority to acquire the route and contract out for an operator.

The Milwaukee Road's failure and the resulting crop of new shortlines was closely mirrored by the collapse of the Rock Island railroad in the Midwest and the formation of Conrail in the East. These episodes left many marginal mainlines and branchlines without service, except in the case where shortline operators stepped into the breach. That’s how Michigan’s Lenawee County RR came to be, for instance.

As interesting as I found shortline railroads, their existence on the fringes of my teenage range of freedom made my visits to them very limited. The financial limitations of college life didn't make this situation any better.  Also, in the pre-Internet era, information about the best time and place to see action on these shortlines was not easy to come by. I believe now that if I’d had the courage to seek out and dial a phone number to any of these operations, that information might have been available to me.  But I didn't.

As it turned out, my most significant exposure to a shortline was one that, counter to the trend, had been independent before being taken over by a larger railroad, first by the Milwaukee Road and later by Burlington Northern. The Washington, Idaho & Montana Railway has come to be my all-time favorite railroad and the subject of my HO-scale modeling efforts. But I have already written plenty about that line, and will here leave it behind to discuss other shortlines I've come to know.

Right out of college, and nearly by accident, I fell right into a situation Mr. Leffler would have envied. I took a job in a small town in southern Michigan, Sturgis to be exact, and came face to face with a shortline railroad serving a different segment of the same route the Lenawee County RR operated. Like the LCRC, this one had Alcos, but not just any Alcos!  The Michigan Southern Railroad (MSOU) operated the very first example of Alco’s model RS-2 - arguably the very first four-axle road switcher. It was nearly 50 years old by this time, and still in daily use. Two model S-2 Alco switchers rounded out the roster, and were as fun to watch as their larger sister.

MSOU RS-2 #466 at Sturgis, MI:  "a situation Mr. Leffler would have envied"

I lived only a block away from the MSOU, and crossed its tracks twice a day driving to and from work. Photographing its comings and goings became a frequent occurrence, and occasional cab rides were not unheard of either. And then, a friend suggested I should write an article about the MSOU. I accepted that challenge, and was soon on a first name basis with its owner, Gordy Morris, and maintenance guru, Barney Gramling as I interviewed them for my article.

But, by the time that article appeared in print (in the March 1996 issue of RMC's sister magazine, Railfan & Railroad), I had left the area. I’d had strong urges to get back to the West, so I found a job in Hoquiam, on Washington’s Grays Harbor. In fact, you couldn't get much farther West, but it sure was a lot closer to my hometown than Michigan.

The newly formed BNSF Railway owned the railroad branch serving the twin “cities” of Aberdeen and Hoquiam, but it wasn't long before I witnessed the birth of a new shortline! In 1996, BNSF began a system-wide purge of its branchlines, and parceled the Grays Harbor branch off to a brand new shortline, the Puget Sound & Pacific (PSAP).

The PSAP was fun to watch, with its old workhorse locomotives gussied up in shiny green and cream paint that really caught the eye. Plus, the PSAP’s marketing team really went to town and drummed up a lot of new business. Soon, 60-plus car trains were running to and from the Harbor on a daily basis.

PSAP's former IC GP-10:  "workhorse locomotives gussied up in shiny green and cream paint"

Meanwhile, the same branchline purge had affected the opposite side of the State. In September 1996, BNSF sold off two former Northern Pacific branches and my favorite, the old WI&M, to another new shortline, the Palouse River & Coulee City RR (PCC). The PCC received a lot of my attention, and I had opportunities to photograph it numerous times while visiting family in Spokane.

My interest in writing about shortlines also got a boost when a fellow shortline enthusiast, Jim Davis, offered me his position as Shortlines Editor for a bi-monthly railfan newsletter entitled Flimsies! Northwest. In the pre-Internet days, this and similar newsletters were a common way for railfans to share timely information on regional railroad activity.  By the time I took this position, most news items came from contributors via e-mail, and ironically, it wasn't long before e-mail groups, and later social networks, led to the demise of Flimsies! NW

Still, I put together the Flimsies! NW shortline news column for its last few years, and I appreciated the news items that came to me from a variety of sources.  It was fun to compile them into a single column for others to read, and they also helped me be in the right place at the right time to see a few of these lines in action for myself.

Two examples: at least once, back on the POVA in North Idaho, a Flimsies! Northwest business card I’d printed out for myself helped me arrange a cab ride with the crew. Contributed news items also helped me catch a Camas Prairie RailNet train running up Lapwai Canyon to Craigmont, ID in the closing months of that operation. Another time, blind luck put me in the right place to catch the first movement of a unit grain train out of Schrag, WA on the Columbia Basin Railway (CBRW), which I was then able to report in my column.





Blind Luck:  CBRW SW-1200's haul the first movement of a unit grain train out of Schrag, WA 

Along with all this Flimsies! Northwest writing, I also managed to put together articles on both the PCC and the PSAP which appeared in Railfan & Railroad and Trains magazines, respectively.

The PCC and PSAP were also good examples of a growing movement in the shortline industry away from individuality. Neither of these railroads had been organized by local interests panicking to retain rail service. In both cases, a larger company operating multiple shortline railroads in different locations across the country saw an opportunity to make money by taking over another “spinoff” route from the Class One carriers. These Shortline conglomerates include WATCO, owner of the PCC, and RailAmerica, which took over the PSAP when it bought out ParkSierra Rail Corp., the smaller conglomerate that originally founded the PSAP.

Shortline conglomerates aren't a bad thing – they can bring lot of efficiency to shortlines with their shared management and marketing structures. But, with fewer ties to the local economy, it’s easier for them to give up on routes that don’t meet their standards for return on investment. This actually happened when WATCO’s PCC stepped away from the former NP and WI&M lines it was originally organized to run. Fortunately, the State of Washington took over, and has since farmed out those lines to independent shortline operators, Eastern Washington Gateway (EWG) on the route out to Coulee City and Washington & Idaho RR (WIR) running down through the Eastern Palouse. The PCC still exists, but now operates some former Union Pacific branchlines in the Western Palouse, where, supposedly, there is more money to be made.

Back to my story now.  A rapid series of life changes soon found me unemployed, and living with my family at my mom’s house in Spokane. I now had lots of time between job prospects, but money was pretty tight.  Nevertheless, my wife let me burn some gas money when I was invited down to ride along in the cab of a PCC train running on the old WI&M Ry. This probably was, and still is, the highlight of my shortline railfan “career” so far.

A view from the cab of PCC GP-35 #2357 - the highlight of my railfan career so far.

Rebounding from the layoff, I took a job on the Hanford Site and moved my family down to Richland, WA, where again, I ran smack into another shortline. The Tri-Cities Railroad (TCRY) operates from an industrial area north of Richland to a connection with Union Pacific in Kennewick, utilizing portions of the former US Government railroad serving Hanford and UP’s old Yakima Branch. Its original roster of two ex-Dept. of Energy MP-15AC road switchers, and its less-than-colorful trains of black tank cars and white refrigerator cars (shipping vegetable oil to, and frozen French fries out of, a Lamb-Weston plant in North Richland) made the TCRY seem pretty mundane. Since then, three rebuilt SD-40-2's and a increasingly diverse traffic base make it more interesting to watch now. The only problem is, after 13 years of watching the TCRY, I’m running out of new photo angles!

TCRY's ex-UP SD-40-2 #31 crossing Columbia Park Trail in Richland - this photo angle may never get old

Outside the immediate Tri-Cities area, I've managed to visit a few of the local shortlines, including the Blue Mountain Railroad (BLMR), another WATCO affiliate operating out of Walla Walla, the PCC and WIR in the Palouse, and the CBRW on two separate routes, between Sunnyside and Granger, WA and, most recently, between Warden and Wheeler, WA (see the photo at the top of this blog entry).



Former Western Pacific GP-35 #784 leads an eastbound BLMR train out of Wallula WA, May 2001

My railroad enthusiasm is not limited to shortlines exclusively.  I'm always interested in nearly anything running on rails. But, even when chasing trains on the Class One lines I still tend to seek out their less standard operations, perhaps a local train powered by smaller and older locomotives working on an industrial spur. These really aren't that different from a shortline after all.
Of course, my available time and money are never sufficient to permit everything I would like to do, so I will never visit and photograph as many shortlines as I hope to. But, on family trips I am usually able to negotiate a few hours, or minutes, to investigate some nearby shortline. And, I do have a constantly growing “bucket list” of shortlines I hope to visit someday. Some are not too far away, and others will require a trip to Pennsylvania, or some other locale where there is a large collection of different shortlines in a fairly small area.

Among various shortlines I have visited are:  

Northwest shortlines - like the Wallowa-Union Railroad in 2006 near Minam, OR . . .

Down South shortlines, like the Meridian & Bigbee RR, near Pennington, AL in 1999 . . .

Foreign shortlines, like Lollandsbanen (Lolland Railway) at Nykøbing-Falster, Denmark in 1986 . . .

Even dead shortlines!  A former Oregon & Northwestern Baldwin road switcher at MK in Boise, ID.

So what is it that fascinates me about shortline railroads? Again, they are compact and easy to comprehend, not the behemoth Class One carriers with thousands of miles of track and nearly as many locomotives on their rosters. Shortlines are each unique, again unlike their much larger sister railroads. They usually serve in very obscure locations, and there’s a challenge and sense of discovery to locating and photographing a train working their often weed-covered routes. Finally, in many ways, from their locomotives to their work practices, shortlines are modern-day reminders of how railroading used to be, with relaxed employees, a slower pace, and simply more personality than the Class Ones.



A CBRW local train approaches Granger, WA in October, 2013. - a modern-day reminder of how railroading used to be



Given a choice between a day spent along a mainline, watching dozens of varied freight and passenger trains roll past at high speed, and a day chasing a 10 mph freight train that may break down or derail before it gets to the next photo location, you know where you’ll find me.