​Railroads

These are samples of the types of photographs included in the Abandoned Washington State book. Many of these photographs have a fascinating story behind them, which you can read in the book.

Steam locomotives

Railroads played a vital role in Washington State's logging industry in the early 1900's. The first photograph shown the former Canadian Colliers No. 14 steam locomotive, built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1898. Canadian Colliers is a Canadian coal mining company. This locomotive hauled trainloads of coal for sixty-two years until it was retired in 1960.

---

Railroad cars

Near the town of Chehalis is a graveyard of sorts for old railroad cars and equipment. Among the passenger cars there are a few special purpose cars as well as a wooden boxcar. 

---

The Cascade snow shed and railroad tunnel

Shown here are a snow shed and tunnel built by the Northern Pacific Railway near Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascade Mountains. On March 1, 1910, this was the site of the deadliest avalanche in US history, known as the Wellington Disaster. Ninety-six people were killed when their snowbound trains were buried under an avalanche of heavy wet snow as much as forty feet deep. This snow shed was built after the avalanche occurred. The railroad pulled up the tracks and abandoned the snow shed and railroad tunnel in 1929 when a second, lower elevation railroad tunnel was completed.