Postcard from Yakima

Many thanks to Wesley Paulson, who visited the Yakima Electric Railway Museum this past week and sent along some photos of the collection there. I haven't been to Yakima, but from what I've seen, it looks like a fascinating time capsule - a small-town street railway car barn preserved in amber, to some degree, complete with a set of working line shaft-operated machines in one corner of the barn. The system outside I'm also not terribly familiar with; they operate an Oporto single-trucker, but I'm not sure how far they go. The trackage extends a ways out of town but some of the wire was stolen some years back, if memory serves. Overall, it's a unique setup.

Here's an overview inside the barn. On the left is Yakima Valley Traction 298, the line's steeplecab, built new for Yakima by GE in 1922. Behind it is line car A, which was built as a locomotive by Niles, of all companies, in 1909. On the right is the Oporto single-trucker. All three of these pieces are operational, I believe, though the locomotive and line car appear to be only rarely used.

The only piece of native passenger equipment in operational condition is this attractive Master Unit, YVT 21, which was built by Brill in 1930. It went to Portland Traction in 1948 after YVT quit passenger service and was then privately owned until it was repatriated in 1989.

There's also identical car 22, emblazoned with the name of its former (and now-deceased) owner. This car is not operational but appears to be in reasonably good condition.

And finally, as far as traction equipment is concerned, there is YVT 20, which was part of the same 1930 order but fared markedly worse than its two sisters. It, too, went to Portland Traction and then spent time in the rain forest in Snoqualmie in private ownership. However at some point its condition deteriorated markedly and it had a tree fall on it - which came first is a chicken/egg question that I'm not sure about. It was finally pulled out of the forest in 2018 and, amazingly, was not scrapped but instead was sent to Yakima. I have no idea what the long-term plans for this car might be.

Again, many thanks to Wesley for sending these great photos!

Yakima car extracted from the rain forest

Thanks to Olin Anderson for passing along news out of the Northwest Railway Museum: Yakima Valley Traction 20, the 1930 Master Unit that has been "lost" in the Snoqualmie rain forest for nearly six decades, has been extracted and sent by truck back to its home city. Its condition is, admittedly, wretched. Besides having suffered very serious deterioration to its body and interior, the car suffered the indignity of having a tree fall on it and stove in the body over one bolster. It is going to the Yakima Electric Railway Museum, which occupies the old YVT shop site, to join sister cars 21 and 22. What the museum's plans for this car might be, I'm not sure.

The departure of car 20 leaves three privately-owned electric cars on or near Northwest Railway Museum property in Snoqualmie. All of them have suffered grievously from decades of neglect and the ravages of the rainy local climate. The worst of the three is Pacific Northwest Traction 60, a wooden interurban car body stored back in the woods on the same track as YVT 20. Also on that track, and visible in the background in one of the photos on the NWRM's post about YVT 20, is Portland Traction 1058, a wooden line car which was complete when retired. Then located out of the woods and in or near the NWRM yard is BCER S103, a wooden steeplecab converted into a snow plow which suffered a frame collapse a few years back. What will become of these three pieces is anyone's guess.