Abandoned Railroads
Historical photographs are in the public domain unless otherwise credited. Uncredited present-day photographs are by the author.
Photo credit: Lillian M. Bell
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Camas Prairie Railroad The history of the Camas Prairie Railroad is unique among U.S. railroads. In the late 1800s, the Pacific Northwest witnessed fierce competition between two of the nation’s railroad giants: the Northern Pacific and Union Pacific. Each railroad wanted to control the strategic routes into the region, leading to what became known as the “railroad war.” Starting in the 1890s, Both railroads wanted to build a line from Lewiston up to the Camas Prairie. |
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Photo credit: Lillian M. Bell
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Rather than continue to battle over the best routes, the rival railroads decided to cooperate and create a new jointly owned railroad. This was unheard of, but without such an agreement, the two railroads would have been forced to lay their tracks right next to each other through the deep and narrow canyons. In 1909, they formed a joint venture and named it the Camas Prairie Railroad. The route required the excavation of seven tunnels and the construction of no less than forty-five wooden trestles! Because there were so many trestles, the railroad was nicknamed the “railroad on stilts,” which is the second unique aspect of the Camas Prairie Railroad. One tunnel was 882 feet long and made a complete 180-degree U-turn. It was appropriately named the Horseshoe Tunnel. The tallest trestle of all was the Lawyers Canyon Bridge (pictured here under construction), one of the few bridges built with steel. It reached a height of 286 feet, equivalent to a twenty-eight-floor high-rise building. Another oddity is that the railroad did not own any trains. Its property included the tracks, bridges, tunnels, and some structures, but no trains. All locomotives and train cars were owned by either Northern Pacific or Union Pacific. |
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Photo credit: Bill Hooper via Flickr
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Photo credit: Bill Hooper via Flickr
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Photo credit: Bill Hooper via Flickr
Photo credit: Dan Scheidell
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Photo credit: Bill Hooper via Flickr
The most notable of the wooden trestles is the Half Moon Bridge (shown here), which forms a curve over 684 feet long with a height of 141 feet. Train engineers said that the bridge would sway up to 8 feet as their train crossed it. Image how the first-time passengers felt. To add to the challenges, sections of the track were built on a 3 percent grade, which is very steep for a railroad. Trains traveling downhill from Craigmont to Lewiston were mandated to stop periodically for up to fifteen minutes so their brakes could cool off and prevent overheating and a catastrophe. |
Photo credit: Dan Scheidell
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Photo credit: Justin/Rotating Frame, via Flickr
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Photo credit: Justin/Rotating Frame, via Flickr
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Photo credit: Justin/Rotating Frame, via Flickr
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Photo credit: David Wilson, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 via Wikimedia
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Idaho Northern & Pacific Railroad The present-day photographs of the railroad tracks were taken between Horseshoe Bend and Cascade, Idaho. Despite the numerous rockslides and other obstructions on the tracks, they are not actually abandoned. They are classified as Out Of Service by their current owner through their subsidiary, the Idaho & Northern Pacific Railroad, as of 2016, and hence could be re-activated in the future after undergoing some serious maintenance. The photographs were taken by a long distance runner known as WhereKentWent on YouTube, who granted permission to display his photographs. |
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The southern section of these railroad tracks were built from 1911 to 1912 from Emmett as far as Smith's Ferry by the Idaho Northern Railway. The tracks were then sold to the Oregon Short Line, which was a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad. The new owner extended the tracks northward to Cascade and McCall by 1914. The railroad was built to serve the timber industry from Cascade to Emmett. The railroad grade was so steep between Banks and Smith's Ferry that sometimes four steam locomotives had to be used. |
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The Oregon Short Line sold to the Rio Grande Pacific Corporation in 1993. The new owners then created the Idaho Northern & Pacific Railroad to operate on this line. In 2001 the Boise Cascade mill in Cascade shut down, which ended the freight service on these tracks north of Emmett. From 1998 to 2016, a tourist train known as the Thunder Mountain Line ran on these tracks from Horseshoe Bend to Cascade. Since 2016 these tracks have not been used. |
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Steam locomotives were ultimately replaced with diesel locomotives in the 1950s, but even then these modern machines eventually outlived their usefulness. In 2013, three of them were sold to the Pacific Imperial Railroad in California, with plans to keep them in service. However, those plans failed to materialize, which left these three locomotives in their final resting place on an abandoned spur line in the desert near the town of Coyote Wells, just a few miles from the border with Mexico. |
Photo credit: el cajon yacht club, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 via WikiMedia
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Photo credit: el cajon yacht club, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 via WikiMedia
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Photo credit: Leah Carrell
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Fernwood Train Station The Milwaukee Railroad built this small train station in the tiny town of Fernwood. In 1915, Hurley Carrell, the station agent, lived in the building with his wife, Leah. The station included living quarters for Hurley and Leah. Unfortunately for the couple, the station was built over a spot prone to sewer runoff from the town of Fernwood. The stench must have been horrible on a hot summer day. To fix the problem, the entire station was hauled half a mile down the track to a dry location. The first three photographs were taken by Leah herself—a rare occurrence in 1915 when most people did not own cameras. |
Photo credit: Leah Carrell
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Photo credit: Leah Carrell
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Photo credit: Leah Carrell
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Photo credit: Johnathan Fischer
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Photo credit: Johnathan Fischer
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Photo courtesy of Dan Lerwill
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Leadore Passenger Train Car This is the railroad car as it looked when it was used as a motel in the 1990s in Leadore. Eventually the motel operation ceased, and around early 2000, it was moved to a ranch outside of town, where it has remained to this day. Due to the extremely dry climate in this part of Idaho, the wood components of the train car have survived remarkably well for being over 110 years old and no longer maintained. |
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These are just a sampling of the historical and present-day photographs of abandoned railroads in Idaho. For more photographs and intriguing stories about Idaho's abandoned railroads, school, and businesses, see Abandoned Idaho Howard Frisk, which is now available.
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Photographs and text copyright Howard Frisk unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
