....i got lost this afternoon, (on purpose), and found a railroad grade heading east out of town! In really good shape, too! A couple trestles, a nice concrete bridge, and near perfect grade that's really smooth. Now I know there was a logging mill somewhere out there, I seen a pic in one of Warren Wing's books, and the loco that worked out there occasionally, is now at Snoqualmie Falls Railroad, but did it connect with the Milwaukee Road in Enumclaw, or the Northern Pacific? Anyone got a pic or two?
The NP's original main to Tacoma headed south from Palmer Jct through Enumclaw. The other Railroad that ran that way was the MILW but I think it was abandoned a long time ago where as the BN abandoned the line through Enumclaw in the 80's. You know the Pacific Coast Railroad minght have gone to Enumclaw also but I do not think it made it that far south. Kevin
Kurt- Yes. That could be the Weyerhaeuser White River Lumber Company you were looking at. NP went more or less south/southwest from town, paralleling the highway toward Buckley. The other direction, Milw and NP left town on a more northerly course. North of Enumclaw the NP and Milw had consolidated their parallel branches using some alternating joint trackage up to Kanaskat. At one time, the Milw did have some tracks south of their last end of track in Enumclaw. There was a wye and a bit more. As I recall, WRLCo connected to both the Milw and NP at the south end of the Milw tracks. I believe Milw had some tracakge rights on both WRLCo and NP for switching purposes. So, yes- There was an NP-WRLCo connection. Certainly the NP would have a finger or two in such a lucrative shipping source. Logs in and assorted forest products out. The Milw agency in Enumclaw closed in June of 1975, and I believe they quit that branch line in early 1976. Boxcab E50
Thanks for the info guy's! I Google mapped it using the satelite images, and you can clearly see the Milwaukee paralell to the NP all the way to the town before the wye at Kanasket.
Correct. They never made it Enumclaw. South of Black Diamond, the line did extend about three miles to a site named Franklin. This branch went out well before WWII. As you head toward Enumclaw from Black Diamond, leaving Black Diamond you drop down a gentle grade. When I was a boy, you could still see traces of the line to Franklin where it went across that point. There was also another branch out of Black Diamond, to a place named Bruce. Again about three miles long. This went out about the time of World War One. They also had a couple of other branches, but those were much further north. Boxcab E50
