Good Afternoon, I have been working for the past several months in building a complete roster of surviving railroad depots in various states, originally starting with my home state of Washington, and using Google Earth to find and mark the exact locations. With all the work that I've put in, I feel it's time to share all that research with the community here, and hoping that a few of you may possibly point out stations I've overlooked. I will be following up this list in the near future with additional threads for the survivors of Washington from GN, NP, SPS, UP, and regional and trolley lines. My main resources have been the information that rrshs.org maintains, information provided by various members of the railfan community online, Washington State Railroad Depots by Clive and Ann Carter, and various County Assessor websites. Depots I've confirmed in person are marked with a *. So, with no further ado, my current list for surviving Washington State Depots of the Milwaukee Road: Built by MILW: Main Line Pine City Warden Kittitas* South Cle Elum* Cedar Falls Kent Everett Branch Snoqualmie Falls (later Maytown)* Carnation* Duvall* Monroe* Snohomish* Everett Glacier Branch Glacier Built by Tacoma Eastern: Morton Branch Morton* Built by Bellingham & British Columbia: Glacier Branch Maple Falls Built by Idaho & Washington Northern: Metalline Falls Branch Newport Cusick Ione Metalline Falls Built by Seattle & Port Angeles: Twin Rivers Branch Joyce* Any comments you have are welcome. Kind Regards, Kyle
I've contributed a bunch of information and updates to the RRSHS these past few years. Still working with Mark on some additions and corrections. Also, beware of the Carter book. It has errors and omissions. Even tax records, etc can be lacking. Transcontinental Main Line: Don't forget the freight house, (dispatchers, engineering, etc), that was indeed next to the Transcon, which actually technically ended at the old passenger station just south of there. Pine City was moved to a farm, cannot recall the exact distance. I believe around a mile. Warden is the museum, still there. Cedar Falls was quite an adventure, now in Covington just west of the air field. Kent was and I believe still is a dentist office. Everett Line: The Snoqualmie Falls depot moved to Maytown was the second at Snoqualmie Falls. The original was demolished. Bellingham Lines: Maple Falls was likely built by the Bellingham Bay & British Columbia. Don't forget the Bellingham office/freight house, which is still there and was a pizza shop. Also, the replacement Lynden depot was moved to Sumas as a section building. Last known to still be there. And a portion of the Lynden freight house is also standing. I have the address here somewhere. I&WN: All four still stand. When in Newport, the building next to the old depot, which looks identical in design, is a post-railroad imagineering as an extension of their museum. Never MILW. I worry about Metaline Falls. It had a tree growing against that back wall, which was damaging the back side roof eave and wall. I fear if they don't get it down, (if still standing), that building will eventually be lost. Enumclaw Line: The second Enumclaw depot was moved after that agency was closed in 1975, it was last seen as a section building at Tukey's. My last time home I did not have a chance to look. I am told by a local it is still there. For the Olympic Division: Don't forget the Port Angeles freight house/office, which is still there as the hobby shop. Joyce as far as I recall was built by the MILW, not the Seattle, Port Angeles & Western. SPA&W I believe built Discovery Junction to P-A. The MILW then built P-A to Twin Rivers. I'd need to dig through my paperwork... I have probably forgotten a few things. Check my web site, in the "Railfan" section under "Assorted Depots". You might see something interesting.
Thanks for the wealth of information. I've generally tried to limit my documentation, so far, to passenger and combination depots, mostly to limit the size of my Google Earth files, otherwise I would have included the Bellingham and Port Angeles structures. For pretty much all of them I've marked their exact sites in a Google Earth .kml file I would be happy to share. I will say this is the first I've heard of an Enumclaw depot still existing. Do you have some more information on where it currently is? I'm planning to head out through Enumclaw this weekend, so I would be thrilled to be able to investigate. Kind Regards, Kyle
Kyle- I am a member of a railroading family, which was heavy in Milwaukee Road employees. Thus my interests. I grew up with some of my friends being also of some railroad's families. Being a native of western Washington, a big interest in that State, but also that includes just about anything west of the Missouri River, in WA-OR-ID-MT, MILW, NP, GN, SP&S and a little UP. There is also a fellow who has a website map which locates some depots. I tried to communicate with him, about some errors and omissions, but he was, (sadly), apparently not actually interested in accuracy. So beware of that problem. The replacement Enumclaw depot was moved after the Agent, (Harry Dahl), retired. Harry lived in the upper Snoqualmie Valley and until the trees grew up, I could see his house from where we lived. They loaded it on a flat car, and barged it over to the Peninsula. That is the building I noted in my earlier post now at Tukey's. Not sure if you'd know where that is found? Let me know and I will try to better pinpoint it. I can email my friend who lives nearby if necessary.
While I don't have many connections to railroads, I did happen to grow up near where the abandoned grade of Seattle's first true railroad is, and wandering the woods around the Coal Creek townsite and biking rail trails seemed to have spawned an interest in railroads. I think I know which site you are talking about. I have managed to add several pictures, but getting the site owner to update information or locations can be a bit of a challenge. Okay, I had done a quick search after you mentioned Tukey, and saw that the area near Discovery Bay came up. I would definitely appreciate any information you could give to help pinpoint the site and whether or not it is still there. -Kyle
Thanks for the great pictures, I'll have to get around to adding a few of my own, too. As far as I know, there is little-to-nothing left at Beverly. However, since Google Earth street view and Adams Count Assessor data rather lack for the town, I would like to pay a visit to see if anything is left from the town's heyday. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4
Aside from the Columbia River bridge, there is almost nothing railroad remaining. Only the old oil tower base. Use caution when visiting Beverly. These days, the small remaining population is at least partly squatters, druggies and foreign transplants of often questionable status.
I'll drop my friend an email. He lives just a couple of miles west of there. I cannot think of the road names, from when I last even found the site. It is all different now. When in railroad days, that station was named "Tukey's". I guess they are now, post-railroad referring to it as Tukey. When the late Don Dietrich was still with us, (well known MILW employee, photographer and historian/modeler), he had some property above the bay, just a short distance from Tukey's. That area has changed so much from RR days. The roads much altered, etc. My wife was back there this past April, for her father's funeral. He was a Port Townsend native. She did not recognize many things. We both remember the area as much more of sleepy little settlements.
Kyle- He says to ask you which direction you will be coming from, when you do travel that way. With that, he will give exact directions to bring you straight in. (It is on private property!) He will be leaving tomorrow, on vacation until late October. So we need to catch him for directions today.
I would be headed in from the direction of the Hood Canal bridge and State Route 19 through Chimacum.
Does anyone know if the Milwaukee Road depot at Goshen, Washington, originally built by the BB&BC in 1891 was constructed with a hipped or gable roof? It was 20x40 feet and likely was the same design as the depot at Strandell. The reason I ask is that I stumbled across a building in Google Earth that by appearances, could be a former depot. The Goshen depot, which was the closest of the MILW depots to the current location, is listed by Clive and Ann Carter as being in operation from 1891 to 1927. In contrast, the Whatcom County assessor data (which isn't always entirely accurate) lists the building with a construction date of 1926, very similar if the County had listed a move as the year of construction. To me, the biggest telltale sign would be if the roof construction corresponds. I hope to sometime this summer take a trip in that direction to get a closer look, and also photograph the other surviving depots on the line at Maple Falls and Glacier. I'll keep you updated.
I might have something, and old black and white view, in my collection. I'll take a look a little later and see. There are a bunch of errors in that book, which I believe I've noted previously. Without going to get my copy, my memory is saying he lists the Lynden depot as demolished in 1969. I know a fellow who worked for the MILW, and he did a relief agent job at Lynden in 1975. It was still in use, as that is the building he was in. He salvaged some old paperwork out of the attic while there. (And gave some of it to me.) Shortly after his stint, they demolished and replaced it with the portable.
Continuing with the depot updates from my roadtrip in late September, here are current photos of the MILW depots from Pine City, used as storage on a farm south of town, and Warden, used as a town museum.
Glad to see that Pine City is still clinging to life. I do wish it could be moved somewhere else and restored. Dunno about these days, but back in the late 1980's, it still had the interior intact, with ticket window, etc.
Sadly, it has since been demolished. From what I have heard, a pump house for the RR well is still standing. Otherwise, all else is gone.
