The (Former) Blue Mountain Railroad is Still Alive and Well

With a new name and an extensive track upgrade in the works, the rail line between Dayton and Wallula still has a bright future.

Story by Ken Graham

For those of us who have worked in downtown Dayton for a long time, the sound of a train whistle used to be a normal part of our work day – like the sight of a 50-yard-long wind turbine blade traveling east on Main Street is these days. But the train whistle is a rare thing now. With the closing of the Seneca Foods asparagus packing plant in 2004, the majority of the railroad's business in Dayton has gone away.

The rail line between Dayton and Wallula is not dead, however. It has a new, much more cumbersome name: "The Southern Subdivision of the Palouse River Coulee City Railway". And it still moves a large amount of wheat from Prescott and Waitsburg to the barge loading facility in Wallula. Trains also still come to Dayton occasionally to transport finished product from the Seneca Seed facility, which is still operating. But Dayton, once home to two busy railroads, now has no other regularly scheduled rail business.

Prescott has one of the largest grain loading terminals in Southeast Washington. In 2007, Walla Walla-based Northwest Grain Growers shipped around 1.5 million bushels of wheat (about 500 carloads) from Prescott to Wallula and a smaller, but still significant, amount from Waitsburg.

According to Dave Gordon, the manager of Northwest Grain Growers, the volume of wheat shipped out of the Prescott and Waitsburg grain terminals has grown significantly in the past 10 years. "Fees to ship wheat by rail all the way to Portland jumped in the late 90s," says Gordon, "so a lot of wheat shifted to our line which offloads to barges at Wallula."

In addition to wheat from Prescott and Waitsburg, the railroad still carries a significant amount of seed out of Seneca's Dayton plant. Seneca ships between 65 and 90 carloads per year, according to Jennie Dickinson, the Port of Columbia's manager. When the asparagus plant was operating, Seneca shipped an additional 300 carloads of asparagus each year. Dickinson says that trains now come to Dayton only about once a month, on a seasonal basis.

The rail line from Wallula to Walla Walla is owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, and the rail line from Walla Walla to Dayton is owned by the Port of Columbia. That section was donated to the Port by the UP in 1996. According to Dickinson, the port accepted the UP's donation in order to keep the line from closing.

The locomotives and most of the cars on the line from Dayton to Wallula are owned and operated by Watco Companies, a nationwide rail operator and transportation company, headquartered in Pittsburg, Kansas. Watco has a contract to operate trains on the full 68 miles of track between Dayton and Walulla. The "Southern Subdivision" also includes a rail line from Walla Walla south to Weston, OR, which Watco also operates. Northwest Grain Growers has a large grain-loading terminal at Spofford, Oregon, near Milton Freewater. And much of the production of Smith Frozen Foods is shipped by rail out of Weston through Walla Walla.

About 50 grain cars on the local line are owned and operated through what is called the "Washington Grain Train" program. This is a joint program between the Port of Walla Walla and the Washington State Department of Transportation which was started in the early 1990s to ensure that there is never a shortage of grain cars when they are needed in our area. According to Gordon, these 50 cars never leave the "Blue Mountain Railroad" area of operation.

In addition to wheat, seed peas and frozen foods, Watco also occasionally ships other goods out of Walla Walla. The Palouse River Coulee City railway includes a north subdivision, with lines from Thornton and Colfax to Hooper Junction, near Washtucna. Watco's trains move large quantities of wheat from Whitman County to Hooper Junction, and then on to Wallula, along Union Pacific-owned track.

In 2005, the Washington State Department of Transportation allocated more than $5 million for a six-year project to do extensive repairs to the rail line between Dayton and Wallula. Work is scheduled to begin late this year, with repairs to some public road crossings in Dayton and Prescott. "We will also be moving a section of track away from the Touchet River between Waitsburg and Prescott," says Dickinson. She says that these were the issues deemed most urgent by the Port and the State.

Between 2009 and 2013, a much broader range of work will begin on the rail line. Dickinson says that there are several stretches between Dayton and Walla Walla where trains must slow down below 10 mph. The goal will be to have the rail operational at 10 mph. or above along the entire line. "The rail line suffers from years of deferred maintenance," says Dickinson.

Dickinson says that work on the line over the next five years will include repairs to rail beds and ties, fixing drainage issues and repairing public crossings and bridges. "When the project is completed, we'll have much improved rail infrastructure available between Dayton and Wallula for years to come."

Dickinson says that preservation of the rail line to Dayton is important for multiple reasons: to help existing shippers keep their businesses viable; to aid in the attraction of new businesses to the area; and to keep the potential for development of the track for tourism promotion, such as a dinner train, possible. She also emphasized that moving freight by rail uses much less energy per ton than trucking, and so is much more environmentally friendly.

"The removal of rail lines across America is now widely recognized as having been a mistake for the overall transportation picture," says Dickinson. "Even though the complexity of this rail line is challenging, it makes sense for the Port and the State to preserve the future of the line and our transportation corridor."

Top to bottom: Locomotives entering Dayton. Grain cars prepare to ship wheat at the grainloading terminal in Prescott. A line of boxcars near Huntsville, just east of Waitsburg. Loading up at the Seneca seed plant in Dayton. The track running south out of Prescott. The route map for the Southern Subdivision of the Palouse River Coulee City Railway (with Waitsburg spelled wrong).

Cover photo: Grain cars loading up near Waitsburg. (Photo by Jennie Dickinson)