Errata: The Ainsworth-Wallula Connection, Pages 10 and 22

On page 10, my text creates some confusion over which railroad originally built the line connecting South Ainsworth with Wallula, and at which of those two points interchange between the Northern Pacific and the Oregon Railway & Navigation Co. actually took place. It turns out I was confused myself about these points, so I took another look at my sources including Jeff Asay's Union Pacific Northwest and Peter J. Lewty's To the Columbia Gateway: The Oregon Railway and the Northern Pacific, 1879-1884.

Wallula was the western terminal of Dr. Baker's Walla Walla & Columbia River RR, where freight and passengers to and from Portland were transferred to the steamboats of the OR&N. In early 1880, Henry Villard and Hans Thielsen initiated construction of the OR&N's new railroad to Portland at Wallula.

At this same time, the Northern Pacific had established Ainsworth on the north bank of the Snake River, right where the Snake empties into the Columbia River. From here, NP forces were constructing its transcontinental line eastward to meet up with crews working west through North Dakota and Montana.

(Click the linked caption for either map to view a larger version)

Wallula Rail Lines circa 1918

Villard negotiated with the NP to reach an agreement in October 1880 that the NP would interchange freight and passengers with the OR&N at Wallula. Shortly after signing this agreement, the NP sent contractors across the Snake to begin building a line south to Wallula. The terminal point on the Snake would be known as South Ainsworth.

According to Mr. Lewty, the NP built this line as narrow-gauge to match the 3-foot gauge of the WW&CR and the OR&N line running west from Wallula. This makes a deal of sense, since freight would need to be barged across the Snake until a proper railroad ferry, and later a bridge, could be implemented, so it really wouldn't matter whether the gauges matched.

Although the Northern Pacific built the South Ainsworth-Wallula connection, OR&N trains operated the line while it was still narrow gauge. But, once the line was re-gauged (along with the Walla Walla-Wallula-Umatilla line) in May 1881 and the Ainsworth railroad ferry established in July 1881, NP crews took over. Also, the NP constructed a small yard and engine terminal at Wallula where OR&N-NP interchange took place. Wallula would also soon serve as the jumping off point for branches to Walla Walla and Pendleton, built by George Hunt's Oregon & Washington Territory RR but soon acquired by the NP.

A few years later, after the OR&N had been reorganized as the Oregon Railroad & Navigation Co., the ORR&N built its new Yakima Branch parallel to the NP line for several miles until turning west and crossing the Columbia River to Hedges, near Kennewick.

Wallula Rail Lines circa 1955

Also, to clarify the story on page 22:

Upon completion of McNary Dam near Umatilla in the early 1950s, the original Wallula yards and much of the connecting tracks were submerged in its back pool. The NP, Oregon-Washington Railway & Navigation Co. (as its parent road, Union Pacific, had re-named it in 1910), and the US Army Corps of Engineers cooperated to re-configure Wallula. The NP line remained in place for much of its length, being relocated to a higher elevation only as the tracks approached the new Wallula.

Union Pacific trains received trackage rights on the NP line north of Wallula as far as a new Villard Junction, where UP's Yakima Branch joined in. South of Wallula, UP trains also ran on NP trackage rights as far as Zangar Jct., where the UP continued east to Walla Walla and the NP south to Pendleton.

Today, BNSF owns and operates the branch from Pasco yard to Wallula, where BNSF trains then travel east to Ayer on the UP mainline for interchange with the Great Northwest Railroad. UP trains still have trackage rights as far as Villard Jct.