Ken, How do you like this great panorama of Monroe, showing the Milwaukee Railroad front and center? This view takes in practically the entire Millwaukee Yard, including the depot, water tank and several industries, including the Pacific Coast Condensed Milk (Carnation) plant at the far left. Notice how the depot was built square in the middle of the Lewis Street right of way, and how the street was bent around the building in it's early years. The view is from 1913, found it on the Monroe Historical Society website. Allen. http://www.monroehistoricalsociety.org/photos/w0280.jpg
Allen- Wow! That's a great view. Had never seen a picture that comes close to showing this much information. Great find! Boxcab E50
Kurt- Yes. It is there. Just south of the junction of Highway 2, and Highway 203. Located between Highway 2, and the BNSF tracks, on the east side of the street. Can't think of the business name.... Boxcab E50
Yes, it is still there. It was closed as an agency in 1940, then moved 115 feet east of it's location in the picture, to straighten out Lewis Street, and was remodeled into a warehouse for the Pictsweet Foods Inc. In the 1950's it was used for storing dried grass for the McKinnon Farms (now Rockman) at Freylands. In the 1960's, when I was hanging around the rail yards, it was a cabinet shop. In the late 1970's it was purchased by a local Real Estate firm and remodeled into offices. Presently there is a Civil Engineering firm (Cavassa & Assoc.) in the waiting rooms and ticket office portion (west end) and a Hair Salon in the freight room portion (east end) of the building. A number of years ago I did a sandblasted cedar wood sign for Cavassa & Assoc. which depicts the building in it's glory days, with the orange, maroon and white color scheme. Allen.
Nice to know that a little history is still hangin' in there after all these years, and a varied one at that!
Here are a few more views from the Monroe Historical Society Archives. This one is of the Everett Local coming out of the covered bridge over the Skykomish River. http://www.monroehistoricalsociety.org/photos/w1431.jpg This one is of the covered bridge being torn down in 1969 http://www.monroehistoricalsociety.org/photos/w1406.jpg And this one is of the Covered Span over Haskell's Slough burning in 1953. http://www.monroehistoricalsociety.org/photos/w1380.jpg Allen.
Last year that bridge was finally torn out due to it slowly washing down stream!!mg: Some one on here,(Boxcab, maybe) worked on it awhile back and said it was pretty scary!
Kurt- Dunno if it was me. But back in the late 1970's, my employer was contracted by the Corps Of Engineers to do flood control survey work. We were on that bridge, early 1978, when the Skykomish was well out of it's banks. Doing lead line soundings, etc. (Unbelieveable how deep the channel was, under that north span!) As well as the Sultan River, and others. Nearly were stranded more than once by rising waters. While on that bridge, it was shaking and shuddering. When a log would strike, it seemed as though the whole thing was going to topple. Probably just harmonics of some sort. But still provided us with white knuckle hours. mg: Boxcab E50
Yeah, I watched it being taken out, sort of, I was supervising our paving project on Highway 2 through Monroe that summer and could see the crane in the river from the east end of our job. I tried to drive down to Buck Island on my lunch break one day, but the City had locked gates on the road in there. When they were finally done we had the crane and trucks all come convoy through our job site on their way back to their yard. Funny thing was, the steel bridge that replaced the old wooden one was way older. It being built in the 1880's and coming off of some branch line in Wisconsin that had been abandoned. Whereas the Howe Trusses on the covered bridge had been built in 1938, when the new connection to the GN at Monroe Jct. was built. That north channel was deep, kids used to dive off of the topmost truss into the river during the low water of summer. Kids were alwatys setting the bridge on fire too. There was one burned away section that you had to walk the rails to get across. A few of the people I took out on it decided they could see the rest of bridge just fine from where they were!!!! Allen.
Allen- Did you look closely at this one? Is the train made up of their new wood chip cars? Could this have been taken, because of that event? So would date during 1969? Boxcab E50
Ken, Actually those are the old 273000 series wood chip racks. I would date this photo somewhere between 1961 and 1963, based on the SD-7 unit 513 being used. I don't think the 513 was used on the Everett Line by 1964. I remember engineer Red Griffin telling me that the 513 could pull more tonnage than any of the other "stump pullers" (SD-7's), and when they had it in consist it could sometimes make the difference between having to double the last mile or two of Tanner Hill or not, when trying to get to Cedar Falls. I have an Enginman's Schedule somewhere that shows the weight of each Milw. locomotive at the time and sure enough the 513 weighs in at a few hundred pounds more than any of the others in it's class. If I remember correctly I don't think the newer 100 ton steel chip cars showed up until after the 8000 series U-33-C locomotives became the regulars on the Everett Branch. It was a combination of the two that eventually wrecked the roadbed on the Everett branch and led to it's abandonment. Allen.
Interesting. I wonder why 513 weighed more? Was it somehow ballasted? I'd have thought 509-511 would be slightly heavier, having the water tanks. And noting these, do you have any data explaining how/why the Milw got those three units, with that equipment? I am wondering if they were from an order cancelled by another RR. BTW- While on the subject of Monroe, had an e-mail from DTS last night. I had been wondering who was using the auction ID of "ff-962." Thought that was a rather clever choice on his part. Boxcab E50
