The Blue Mountain History.

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The "Blue Mountain" History.

Introduction:

The Blue Mountain is the oldest existing locomotive in the State of Washington. The narrow gauge engine was built in 1877 for the pioneer Walla Walla & Columbia River Railroad and served in the Columbia Basin for nearly 30 years until it was displaced by standard gauge locomotives and finished it's career in Alaska.

The Blue Mountain locomotive was ordered by Dr. Dorsey Baker in the fall of 1877 for the narrow gauge Walla Walla & Columbia River Railroad that had been completed two years earlier to span the 32 miles between the steam boat docks at Wallula and the Eastern Washington town of Walla Walla. The engine was entered into the order books of the Porter Bell Co. of Pittsburgh, PA. on October 23, 1877. The order called for a locomotive with a 0-6-0 wheel arrangement, and a eight wheel tender, at a gauge of 3 feet. The engine was to be equipped to burn wood as fuel. Lettering was to include the number "4" painted on the cab panels and the railroad's initials of WW&CR on the sides of the tender. The engine weighted 14 tons, and the tender weighted approximately 3 tons, for a total weight of 17 tons. Tractive effort was about 5000 pounds, and draw-bar horsepower is estimated to have been between 150 to 200 hp. Porter Bell Co. shipped the locomotive by steam ship on January 1, 1878.

In Walla Walla the Blue Mountain joined five other Porter locomotives, two tiny 7-ton tank engines with an 0-4-0 wheel arrangement, the "Walla Walla" and "Wallula"; two 10-ton 2-4-0 engines, the "Columbia" and "Mountain Queen", and a much larger 20-ton 2-6-0, the "J.W. Ladd" (the Mountain Queen and J.W. Ladd were actually delivered a few weeks after the Blue Mountain). By the time the Blue Mountain arrived in Wallula, it already had a new owner, for on February 18, 1878, Dr. Baker had sold seven eights of his railroad stock to the Oregon Steam Navigation Company (OSN). The OSN controlled transportation on the Columbia River, and purchase of the railroad strengthened it's monopoly.

For three years the Blue Mountain hauled wheat and other freight between Walla Walla and Wallula. It's narrow gauge territory expanded when OSN started to construct a branch line from Whitman to Weston in the spring of 1878. Although the line never reached Weston, it was completed as far as Blue Mountain Station, 14 miles from Whitman, on September 15, 1879.

In the meantime the OSN had been sold on July 1, 1879 to Henry Villard who reorganized it as the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (OR&N). Villard immediately set out to construct a standard gauge railroad from Portland to the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers at Ainsworth, 11 miles upstream from Wallula, to meet the Northern Pacific Railroad then under construction from the east. All of this construction briefly expanded the narrow gauge trackage. Temporary narrow gauge tracks were laid from Wallula 11 miles north to South Ainsworth at the mouth of the Snake River, and from Wallula 26 miles West to Umatilla, continuing on to Coyote, 43 miles from Wallula, in the fall of 1880. The Blue Mountain most likely saw service all the way from Walla Walla to Umatilla from October 1, 1880 until May 1881. The Umatilla to Coyote section was never ballasted and was not operated. At Umatilla the railroad connected with steam ships avoiding the Umatilla Rapids during the low water season. The standard gauge tracks from the Dalles reached the narrow gauge at Coyote in May of 1881. The line was rapidly widened to Umatilla. The Umatilla to Wallula line was converted to standard gauge on May 17. Standard gauging continued, and the first standard gauge train arrived in Walla Walla on May 25, 1881. The Wallula to South Ainsworth line was converted to standard gauge at the same time, leaving the 14 mile Blue Mountain branch as the only remaining narrow gauge trackage.

The light traffic on the Blue Mountain spur did not require six locomotives, and the Walla Walla, Wallula, Ladd were shipped to the West side lines in June, 1881. The Mountain Queen left a few weeks later, in August, 1881 having been sold back to Dr. Baker for a new narrow gauge railroad venture, leaving only the Columbia and the Blue Mountain stationed at Whitman.

Dr. Baker's new line was incorporated as the Mill Creek Flume Railroad. Using surplus narrow gauge rails, Dr. Baker started construction on a 14-mile line reaching east of Walla Walla toward the Blue Mountains in August of 1881. The new railroad ran 11 miles to Dixie with a 3-mile branch to Tracy on Mill Creek. The initial objective was to access the timber regions of the Blue Mountains via flumes reaching to both Tracy and Dixie. This line would become the home of the Blue Mountain in later years.

The Blue Mountain continued to work with the Columbia on the Blue Mountain Branch for another two years. In the meantime the OR&N was preparing to build a new standard gauge line from Walla Walla to Blue Mountain station via Milton-Freewater as part of a new through route to Pendleton. on March 23, 1883 the standard gauge line from Walla Walla reached Barret, a point 8 miles from Whitman. Barret to Blue Mountain section was quickly converted to standard gauge, and the Whitman to Barret line was dismantled. The two remaining narrow gauge engines were shipped west to a "new" narrow gauge operation at Cascade rapids in the Columbia gorge.

The large amount of standard gauge construction and conversion of narrow gauge in the early 1880s left the OR&N with a surplus of narrow gauge locomotives and a shortage of standard gauge power. In view of the light traffic on it's Cascade Portage Railroad, it was decided to convert that line to narrow gauge, and to free up the two standard gauge locomotives that were working there.

The 6-mile portage railroad had been built 20 years earlier by Capt. Ainsworth. It was constructed on the Washington side of the Cascade Rapids of the Columbia River at the present area of the Cascade Locks. The railroad bypassed a set of rapids that could not be navigated by steam boat. The line was originally built in 1863 to 5-foot gauge, and was converted to standard gauge in 1880. The completion of the railroad on the Oregon side of the river greatly reduced steam boat traffic and the volume of freight carried on the portage railroad. It was now narrowed again to 3-foot gauge. In the spring of 1893 the Blue Mountain and Columbia traveled by river steamer to the upper landing and worked the portage railroad for 11 years.

The operation of Dr. Baker's locomotive on the Cascade Portage Railroad was ironic, for 18 years earlier Dr. Baker had tried to put that line out of business by building a competing railroad. He built a shorter mule powered narrow gauge railroad. His line was organized as the Middle Cascade Portage Railroad, and became the subject of immediate legal challenges. It was a battle Dr. Baker did not win, and the OR&N's Cascade Portage Railroad became the sole survivor. By the time the Blue Mountain and Columbia arrived, the portage business was probably very light, however ship traffic never quite ceased, and the little engines continued a modest portage operation.

On June 12, 1887 the OR&N bought the Mill Creek Flume Railroad, and brought both surviving narrow gauge lines under one ownership. In 1888 one of the two portage railroad engines, possibly the Blue Mountain, was shipped to Walla Walla temporarily while the Mountain Queen received an overhaul in the OR&N shops at the Dalles. In 1889 it was renumbered to OR&N # 2.

In 1891 the Union Pacific Railroad took control of the OR&N and the Blue Mountain became Union Pacific # 283. In 1894, when the OR&N returned to operations under it's own name, it received the number "3".

In May 1894 the Columbia River experienced a major flood. Main line operations were disrupted for weeks, and the upper half of the portage railroad was washed out. In view of the light traffic on the line, the damage was not repaired, and the portage railroad was eventually reduced to a stub operation shipping salmon to a cannery owned by the Warren Packing Company. The Columbia remained to serve the canning operation for another dozen years until the line was converted to mule power about 1906.

The OR&N shipped the Blue Mountain back to Walla Walla in the summer of 1894 to assist the Mountain Queen on the Mill Creek Flume Railroad. By this time traffic on the narrow gauge line to Dixie had been impacted by a competing railroad, for in 1889 the Northern Pacific Railroad had constructed a standard gauge line from Walla Walla to Dixie and on to Dayton. The remaining traffic apparently did not warrant two locomotives, and the Mountain Queen was sold to the Ilwaco Railway & Navigation Company in 1900, leaving the Blue Mountain as the last narrow gauge engine in Walla Walla.

During this time the Blue Mountain was likely stationed at Dudley (Tracy) as the OR&N maintained narrow gauge locomotive facilities there. OR&N maps also show a one-stall narrow gauge engine house in Walla Walla. On the Dixie and Tracy lines the Blue Mountain hauled wheat, cord wood, and clay. A narrow gauge spur led into the Walla Walla State Penitentiary where clay was used to make bricks.

On November 23, 1903 the narrow gauge was sold to a new entity, the Mill Creek Railroad, and the Northern Pacific subsequently assumed control of the line. With a parallel railroad to Dixie, the N.P. likely had little use for the narrow gauge. By June 1905 the Northern Pacific had terminated narrow gauge operations. Some of the tracks, probably the Tracy spur, and some yard trackage in Walla Walla, were converted to standard gauge, and the rest was dismantled.

With the end of narrow gauge operation in Walla Walla the Northern Pacific sold the Blue Mountain to the Seward Peninsula Railway in Nome, Alaska. The Blue Mountain was shipped by steamer to Nome and the engine went to work in the Nome gold fields in the summer of 1906. The Seward Peninsula Railway was built in 1900 to serve gold mining operations in the hills east of Nome. Until the arrival of the Blue Mountain the line was operated exclusively with Climax geared locomotives due to the very rough trackage over the swampy tundra.

Pictures taken in Nome show the engine had been modernized. While the engine had earlier been converted from burning wood to using coal, the diamond stack was removed (the old wood burning stack having been replaced at an earlier time), and a straight shot gun stack was installed. The engine also received modern air brakes and no longer had to rely on the tender brakes that were standard back in 1877.

The Blue Mountain's operating life in Nome lasted only five years. At the time the Blue Mountain arrived, the Seward Peninsula Railroad was involved in a major expansion that increased the length of the line from about twenty miles to more than 90 miles, running from Nome all the way to Shelton on the Kutzitrin River. However the Nome boom was nearly over, and traffic did not meet expectations. Regular train service ended in the summer of 1910. The Blue Mountain was never to run again.