A Day on the WWV

Few things to a young railfan are more memorable than a ride on your favorite railroad. On a summer day in 1972, a young Japanese exchange student joined the crew of the

Walla Walla Valley turn to Milton-Freewater for an unforgettable ride. Here is the story and photographs of Hiroshi Okada’s ride on the“Seventy-Seven.”

At the time, the WWV had two engines, the SW-1’s 77 and 104. I rode the 77 on a typical hot summer day in August, 1972.

My host family dropped me off at the depot in Freewater and the manager picked me up and drove to Walla Walla by his car. I had my Pentex SP along to take photographs. We reported to the depot in Walla Walla, and I signed a sort of certfiicate to allow me to ride back to Milton-Freewater. Then the gentleman showed me the engine shed, where the two locomotives rested, 104 in the back. The crew was taking the 77 this day, and pulled it out in front of the shed to pose it for a while so that I could take a photo.

The crew was an engineer with a cap, an old fireman who always sat on the other side of the cab, a conductor, and two brakemen. We left the car barn to switch a few cars at the yard near the Washington State Prison. I still remember a few prisoners were working on the field nearby and someone came up to us and gave us a bag of what they harvested. I do not remember what it was. We returned to the carbarn, then left for Milton-Freewater.

It was a typical summer day. The sun was up and high. The engineer and fireman stayed in the cab, but the rest of the crew were on the front deck to watch the scenery. The tracks went through the country side, past the back of houses, and so on. Many irrigation sprinklers were operating in the fields alongside the track, and a few times we slowed down to let the spray of the water pass in front of us so the crew wouldn’t get wet. Our first stop was the crossing with “Uncle Pete” right before College Place. The gate was across our tracks, so the conductor had to unlock the gate with his key and swing it across the UP.

We radioed the Freewater depot when we left Walla Walla. Other than that, there was no radio communication at all until we arrived at Freewater around noon. Just north of Freewater, we stopped to switch tank cars at a fertilizer plant at Cobb road. Right behind the big church at the north end of town, there was LNG or gasoline facility and a siding. If there was a tank car to drop in, The train will do that first before it headed for downtown. Then the train would proceed from the Big Church down the middle of the street to Milton, just like good ole days of the interurban train.

When got to the Freewater depot, the entire crew got inside, and rested for a while. The agent was waiting for them. The engineer registered the arrival of the train by signing the register book with the date, origin, engine number and so on.

On that day I rode it, the train had to do a few tasks before going to the south side of town, so the engineer decided to do the interchanging first. Whatever the task the crew had to do, it seemed that the engineer instructed what he wanted to do, and everyone moved accordingly. The conductor opened up the switches, the brakemen rode the cars, the crew pushed and pulled cars accordingly. After a bit, we left Freewater depot to drop a yellow reefer for the UP on the interchange track.

It seemed that not much business was handled near the Freewater Depot except for interchanging cars with Uncle Pete. The interchange track we had used on that summer day was the one in front of Uncle Pete's depot, which is west of the Freewater depot. But also there was a switch east of the Freewater depot on the Uncle Pete's main that would lead up Russell Street back to the WWV wye track at the north end of town. Also, on the south side of the UP depot, a track would reach to the WWV main (the spur to Blue Mountain growers Co-Op). I thought I saw a UP geep on that lead one day when I was in the area.

We headed down Main Street, past the intersection with Highway 11, which didn’t have stoplights in 1972. We switched the cannery and a grain elevator at the south end of town, then returned north. During the school year, the 77 usually pulled the train from Walla Walla to Milton in the morning. Even though I was in my US History class at McLoughlin High in the early afternoon, I could tell the train was approaching from the south by hearing his ringing bell as he came up Main Street.

By the way, UP’s train from Walla Walla to Athena came into Milton-Freewater around noontime, too. The train was usually a GP9 with a string of boxcars and refeers. Most of the reefers were bound for a frozen food place in Athena (Smith’s) producing frozen onion rings.

I still remember that the we performed a so-called "flying switch" operation to drop a box car to a siding. The 77 throttled up to run eight, then the crew uncoupled a boxcar behind, to roll by itself. We passed the switch, then the brakeman quickly through the turnout for the siding, sending the boxcar down the spur. Oh, boy can you imagine me standing inside the cab without knowing what the crew would do!! That was amazing!! I’d heard about the operation before, but never seen it done! “