Updates and credts

What's New?

December 2005: First update in over a year. Replaced some vintage photos with better scans. Added recent photos of Ed Schneidmiller to GM's page. Added a page of vintage electric photos, courtesy John Henderson. Finally got around to updating the modeling section, including new page on the new and improved WWV layout now under construction, a track plan, and a few photographs.

Hold my feet to the fire: I have a ton of lineside detail and structure photos from 1980 to someday upload, as well as extensive car movement information, waybills, and a traffic analysis based on data from 1950s-1960s.

About the website. . . .

A big word of thanks to two guys without which this website wouldn't exist: Marc Entze, left, and retired WWV General Manager Ed Schneidmiller, middle. That's your webmaster on the right. The three of us had a great visit in May of 2005 at Ed's south Walla Walla ranch.

When I began this website on the Walla Walla Valley Railway in the early summer of 2002, my goal was two-fold: share what information I'd been able to unearth on this interesting little railroad, and hopefully shake more nuggets of knowledge from the bushes.

I'd thought WWV was a pretty obscure railroad. There hadn't been much published at all on the railroad in the enthusiast press, and its presence on the internet (as we know, the only true indicator in the importance of anything) was minimal as well.

I never would have imagined so many folks had so much information on the WWV in their own collections--and were so gracious and willing to share what they knew. The information has snowballed. . . I have more leads than I have time to follow, and who knows what I'm missing out there!

This website wouldn't exist without their generosity and interest in the WWV, so my hats off to them! I'll likely miss someone, but my thanks to:

Marc Entze, a Walla Walla native and remembers the WWV switching behind his elementary school in College Place back in the BN days. His access to clippings, blueprints and other information through his day job as a historian at Fort Walla Walla museum, along with countless hours driving old right of ways, photographing structures and tracking down leads on nagging questions only fueled my interest in the subject more.

John Henderson, who endured scanning nearly 50 of his late-60s vintage WWV action shots for use on the site, and unselfishly shared many photos in his collection as well. John is one of the good guys in the hobby, and a white knight who rode to the rescue just when I thought that no one bothered to shoot good action photographs of the railroad during the 1960s.

K. E. Schneidmiller, grand old man of the WWV, whose recollections of thirty-six years associated with the WWV are razor sharp, even 27 years after his retirement. Ed hired out in 1941 and retired in 1977; one of the rare career railroaders whose path into management didn't mean he had to leave his hometown.

Hiroshi Okada, who is one of WWV's biggest fans, despite living in Tokyo, Japan. It is Hiroshi we have to thank for a wonderful written and photographic record on how the WWV operated back in 1972. . . when he was a high school exchange student in Milton-Freewater.

Chris Atkins, who subsidizes this whole operation in a way by donating its webspace. Check out his great www.camasprairierails.com website for a similar treatment on the Camas Prairie Railroad, my other great inland northwest railroading love.

Roger Ferris, who shared his notebook of hand-written notes and maps doodled during the early 1980s as well as his fine archival-style photographs of WWV operations and infrastructure. And thanks to Frank Dekker for putting me in touch with Roger.

Larry Dodd, now-retired archivist in the collections department at Whitman College's Penrose Library, the keeper of the keys to the kingdom, so to speak, for thanks to him, the eight big boxes of WWV corporate records were added to the college's collection when the WWV carbarn was sold by BN.

Doug Nighswonger, who lent me photographs of WWV locomotives from his extensive slide collection.

Rich Batie of the shortline development department of BNSF for copies of the applications and rulings on abandonment of the WWV.

Donovan Furin, for the great layout drawings, and wonderful cartography detailing WWV's trackage in Walla Walla and Milton-Freewater.

Phillip Beach, for photos of NP at Walla Walla in the early 1950s as well as a great set of NP terminal plat maps.

Kevin Dragoo, for sharing vintage photographs and elevation drawings of NP Walla Walla structures.

Brian Treadway, of College Place, who originally posted Hiroshi's photos on his own website on railroads in the Walla Walla area.

Paul Didelius, another member of the "Walla Walla Mafia," for recollections and photographs of BN operations in the waning days of operation on ex-WWV trackage in Walla Walla

Dave Mewhinney and George Elwood, for permission to reproduce vintage WWV photos from their websites, Dave's Railpix and Fallen Flags.

Tim Gilbert, for information from ICC Annual Reports on the WWV.

Ted Pope, for copies of NP timetables and train briefs.

Northwest Railway Museum for persevering in acquiring the former WWV 770 from the Port of Longview.

WWV's conductor and brakeman acknowledge the photographer with a salute as their train makes its way up North 13th Street at the Pine Street intersection on June 7, 1967. Railroading here retains its "laid back" pace, conductor and brakeman on the front platform of WWV 770 taking in the sights. Such scenes seem like quaint curiosities from 35 years distance. There was no Amtrak nor Penn Central; LBJ was president, strugging with an escalating war in Viet Nam and a growing protest movement; The Six Day war between Egypt and Israel had erupted two days earlier; Carl Yaztrzemski was having a triple-crown year for the Boston Red Sox; Star Trek was in its first season; the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released a week earlier. If railroading like this seems from a different era, it was: 1967 was the last gasp of traditional post WW2 America. ---John Henderson photograph