Early Inception and Expansion
The PCC connects to UP’s Ayer Subdivision at Hooper Junction, located a little more than an hour northeast of Pasco and a bit less than two hours southwest of Spokane. The Hooper Subdivision runs 28 miles northeast to Winona, where it turns east and continues 25 miles farther to Colfax. At Winona, the Pleasant Valley Subdivision diverges and wanders northeast for 30 miles to reach the end of track at Thornton. Known collectively as the PV Hooper Branch, these lines are today owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and leased by Watco. The PCC has trackage rights over UP from Hooper Junction to the Columbia River port town of Wallula. Rails reached the Palouse in the early 1880s. Union Pacific predecessor Oregon
Railway & Navigation Company (OR&N) and the Northern Pacific negotiated an 1880 agreement essentially dividing the territory — the NP would not build south of the Snake River, and OR&N would not build to the north. The exception was a line OR&N had surveyed east from Connell on the NP to reach Colfax, which was built by OR&N subsidiary Columbia & Palouse Railroad in 1884 and extended to Moscow, Idaho, in 1885. Through the mid-1880s, the OR&N established a network of lines connecting Wallula on the Columbia River east to Walla Walla, extending from there south to Pendleton, Ore., and north over the 3.3 percent ruling grade of Alto Pass to Riparia on the Snake River. The Snake River agreement didn’t
last long; in 1886, NP-backed interests surveyed a route from Wallula to Pendleton, clearly in violation. Coupled
ABOVE RIGHT: A station sign marks Willada, with the substantial WhitGro elevator complex in the background. RIGHT: The elevator at Winona remains a hub of activity for local farmers shipping their wheat to market, and on August 21, 2011, conductor Joe pauses for a minute to chat with the operator. It’s up to your imagination whether they’re discussing the weather, a favored sports team, a mutual friend, or simply checking on the status of the harvest. All we know for sure is that Larry is up in the cab, wondering when the heck this show is going to get on the road -- he’s been on duty since long before the sun rose, and he’d like to get home at a decent hour on this beautiful late-summer day.
BELOW: Freshly-
painted Watco units running on trackage rights over Union Pacific’s Ayer Sub slice through the dramatic basalt cliffs of the Palouse River Canyon just downstream of Palouse Falls on September 20, 2015.
30 JANUARY 2017 •
RAILFAN.COM
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