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1945-1949: Traffic Boom swamps WWV electric Motors
World War II
postponed plans for further expansion to the fruit and canning industry
along the Walla Walla Valley, but with the hostilities resolved,
blueprints were dusted off. Among them, expanded warehouses and packing
facilities of the Blue Mountain Prune Growers Co-operative in Milton, and
construction of the new Umatilla Cannery at the south end of the railroad
in Milton, which promised an estimated 100 cars inbound and 325 cars
outbound of new traffic.
The parallel
development of frozen fruit and vegetable processing and mechanical
refrigerator of boxc ars led Birds-Eye frozen foods to construct a large
processing plant in Walla Walla in the late 1940s; the locally-owned Stadleman and Mojoinnier firms built frozen food storage facilities and
processing plants in Milton-Freewater. Nearly all these businesses were
jointly served by Union Pacific and Walla Walla Valley.
Revenues on the
railroad had quadrupled in just ten years, from $48,049 in 1938 to
$169,695 in the first 10 months of 1948 alone. The railroad was now
hauling more than 1000 carloads of sugar beets yearly, with a doubling in
sugar beet acreage anticipated between 1947 and 1949—nearly all of it for
the WWV and Northern Pacific. Traffic in the Walla Walla Valley was there
for the taking—but was the Walla Walla Valley Railway up to the task?
The WWV was
constructed to standards typical of rural interurban railroads. The rail
was light—mostly between 56 and 72 pounds per yard. Grades were short, but
exceeded two percent in several locations. And the electrical supply
system, adequate for light passenger service, was completely inadequate to
handle the traffic now expected of it. The railroad’s four freight
locomotives were all converted from trolley or interurban cars dating back
to 1906. The most powerful, Motor 19, was rated at only 10 cars of
prunes—440 tons—on the climb north from the Walla Walla River to ward
College Place. An interurban passenger car, the 322, made the switch to
freight service with little outward modification, capable of hauling only
three cars of prunes. The NP paid $4000 in 1943 to rescue Spokane, Coeur
d’Alene & Palouse boxcab 500 from a junk yard in Spokane and put it to
work on the WWV. The motor had become surplus after SC&P owner Great
Northern dieselized the line from Spokane to Moscow, Idaho. The 500 was
good for seven cars of prunes on the grade.
Northern Pacific
had been considering upgrading the WWV’s antiquated motive power fleet
since 1945, but had not acted on it. As post-war traffic grew and failure
of the electric engines became more frequent, WWV General Manager D. E.
Carlson pushed the issue. In an October 8, 1948 memo to NP President R. S.
Macfarlane, Carlson recounted the horrors of the 1948 fruit shipping
season, when three of the railroad’s four motors failed at one time or
another. “In this highly competitive territory we could lose a great deal
of business in a short period of time if one of our present units became
disengaged at a time when business was at a peak. Other railroads can
usually borrow locomotives and experience little delay. In our position,
however, we could not use steam locomotives because of the severity of our
curves, and I do not know of any diesel-electric locomotives the Northern
Pacific own, small enough to be used on our line because of our lighter
bridges with the exception of one operated at Duluth, Minnesota, by the
Union Depot Company.”
A 1949 study on
the WWV by a Northern Pacific "Special Committee" reported: “The larger present motive
power makes the 14 mile run from Milton-Freewater to Walla Walla in 1 hour
35 minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes, of which, because of voltage loss,
 1 hour
10 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes is required to make the 6-mile run from
Walla Walla River to Walla Walla. In this upgrade movement from the river,
the motive power can probably exert no more than 50% of its rated tractive
power, and an added result is that when one train is operating to Walla
Walla from the river, no other train can ascend the grade from the river
in either direction.”
G.M. Carlson
proposed several options to the WWV’s motive power dilemma: purchase
additional used electric locomotives and upgrade the power transmission
system with a new motor-generator-type substation; purchase a
diesel-electric locomotive to supplant the electric fleet; or dump the
electric operation entirely and replace them with at least three diesels
of the GE 44-ton equivalent. Carlson went so far as to track down a pair
of electric locomotives made surplus by the Texas Electric Railway in
Dallas, for sale at $7,500 each plus freight. For another $8,000, Carlson
wrote, Texas Electric would sell its used substation equipment. His
recommendation: “We not purchase anything further in the electric line. I
would prefer to purchase at this time one 44 ton diesel electric
locomotive,” with an eye to the future to purchase two more.
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A rare color view from
the late 1940s finds WWV motor 500, a former Spokane Coeur d'Alene &
Palouse locomotive, northbound on N 13th St. in Walla Walla. The 500
appears to have a maximum-tonnage train--seven cars--of ice bunker
refrigerator cars in tow. The cars are likely loaded with prunes from the
dock at Blue Mountain Prune Growers Association. Several of the cars are
white "MDT" Merchants Despatch Transportation cars. Photo collection of
Joe Testagrose collection, from Dave's RailPix.
Once WWV 22, an
interurban coach, then end of passenger service in 1931 found the car's
platforms removed and placed into freight service. Renumbered 322, the
motor's capacity was rated at a mere 132 tons on the climb from the Walla
Walla River crossing to College place--three carloads of prunes. The 322
was photographed at the Walla Walla carbarn.
One of two WWV freight
engines actually classified as "locomotives" under ICC classification (the
other being the 500), motor 19 was the most powerful electric on the line,
good for 440 tons (or 10 cars) of freight. It rests at Walla Walla. Bill
Volkmer photo, from Dave's RailPix. |
