Milwaukee Road/Othello

Othello switchmen decorate the end of the a cut of cars switched out in the Milwaukee Road's East Yard, August, 1978

Train #200 arrives at Othello at dawn in August, 1978.

In building its Puget Sound Extension, Milwaukee Road made a point of avoiding what passed for population centers: Billings, Great Falls, Spokane, Richland-Kennewick-Pasco--all essentially developed with the arrival of the Northern Pacific or Great Northern twenty years before-- were ignored as the newcomer marched to the west coast, sacrificing online traffic for a shorter route and greater operational efficiency. The branchlines to the big cities would come later.

The Milwaukee Road put down its terminals and shops in small farm and timber communities, in places often hard to discern on the Rand-McNally: Deer Lodge, Three Forks, Harlowton, Alberton, isolated Avery, and, in Washington State, Malden, Othello and Cle Elum (well, technically South Cle Elum--Cle Elum itself was a few miles away, on the Northern Pacific).

Usually the biggest employer in any of these towns--and at least the best paying--the CMSt.P&P, while not keeping the boys down on the farm, at least kept ‘em from leaving for the bright lights and illicit temptations of Spokane or Seattle. The sons of farmers and merchants hired on and developed a railroad culture centered on the freight yard at the outskirts of town, a small world unto itself in a town often too small to support anything more extravagant for fine dining than a Dairy Queen. Such a place was Othello, in Adams county, Washington. A town of about 4500 on the edge of the Columbia plateau, Othello was a dusty, windy, often uninviting town whose reasons for existence were the Milwaukee Road and production of frozen french-fried potatoes.

Switch engineer Larry Pope signs off in Othello's register room. August, 1978

Second-trick Othello train-order operator Dale Liberty, Othello depot, 1979.

The west end of the railroad’s electrification "gap", Othello maintained a good-sized roundhouse facility and classification yard, perched on the west side of town along the bluffs above the Potholes Canal. Divided by West Main street, the terminal consisted of the "east yard," with eight classification tracks, an icing facility and a stockyard; and the "west yard", five arrival/departure tracks and the roundhouse. Between the two, at the road crossing, was the wood framed depot-- the social and professional center of the Othello railroader.

The building reverberated with every hard joint made by switchmen adding a cut of grain cars or mechanical refrigerators to a train in the yard. Crews switched with such fervor at Othello that one wondered if they took a certain glee in seeing how much grain they could dislodge from a covered hopper when coupling up. Inside the depot, three generations of railroaders traded lies, rumors, and innuendos, train order operators and clerks cleared trains and compiled manifest lists.

Among the operators was Dale Liberty, savoring yet another cigarette shortly after sitting down for his second-trick tour in the summer of 1979. Outside, within Liberty’s sight, is his pride-and-joy black Lincoln Continental, its back seat filled with empty cigarette cartons (and, rumor has it, several uncashed paychecks). For Liberty, typical of many of the men working for the Milwaukee Road in Othello, railroading is a family affair. Though many won’t publicly acknowledge the likelihood of abandonment, these were to be the last group of Othello railroad men.

After the railroad shut its doors, the tight-knit community of railroaders unraveled, scattering to the wind for jobs on Burlington Northern, Union Pacific, the Alaska Railroad, Western Pacific, and, a few years down the road, Montana Rail Link or Washington Central. Many took a shot at a new life elsewhere, in a new career--Dale Liberty among them. Shortly after the railroad closed, he quit smoking, cut his hair, cashed those paychecks, and moved to Nevada, former coworkers say, where he works in the computer industry.

Twenty years after the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific abandoned, I guess it’s enough that these rails even exist. That’s certainly a better shake than most of the rest of the railroad has gotten. In too many towns west of Miles City, little more remains but dust in the wind.