CHARBONNEAU COUNTY RAILROAD
& Predecessor Roads

The Charbonneau County Railroad, founded in 1972, is one of the more colorful and charming of Oregon's shorelines, albeit short-lived. It was characterful and hopeful, a new shortline in an era when many of the nation's railroads were dispapearing into mergers or bankruptcy. This scrappy company (and its several, unique predecessors) was built on spite and spirit, seemed to defy every obstacle and survive every challenge before it. Were it not for the recession of 1981-82, it's possible that this line would still be with us, perhaps even still using its original 1943-built General Electric diesel to shuffle cars in the high country of Eastern Oregon.

This web site is dedicated to the memory of the Charbonneau County Railroad and its small but important role in the history of railroading in Oregon and the wider Northwest.

The line that would later become the Charbonneau County Railroad was founded in 1884 when the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company extended its main line over the Blue Mountains to a connection with the Oregon Short Line at a place called Huntington. In doing so, the company's engineer, Hans Thielsen, bypassed the county seat of Van Buren, laying the new railway to the east of town.

Although the distance of the O.R.&N. line from the town was little more than one mile, this "bypass" was considered an affront by the townspeople of Van Burn, who promptly founded the Walla Walla & Van Buren Railway to construct a connection to the O.R.&N. and, eventually, to the city of Walla Walla, then the most important community in the vast interior of the Columbia Basin. By June, 1883, the first grading began at Abernathy Street, just one block north of the courthouse. Ties came from local pine, but the rushed completion of the Northern Pacific over the summer of that year delayed the arrival of rails.

The early involvement in the project of Robert Strahorn, closely associated with the O.S.L., raised the assumption that the company was meant to be an extension of that company in order to bypass the Northern Pacific-controlled O.R.&N. By early 1884, however, changes in management at the N.P. and the O.R.&N. seemed to put a damper on matters, and W.W.&V.B.R.R. iron layers went no further than a connection to the O.R.&N. At Charbonneau Junction, 1.1 miles away from the center of town. Though lines were surveyed northward beyond the O.R.&N., no further grading was started.

By 1887, Strahorn was out and, to everyone's surprise, the W.W.&V.B.R.R. was purchased not by the O.S.L. but by the N.P.. The purchase briefly raised more speculation about the incorporation of the line into larger schemes, but such talk came to naught, and for the next decade, the company operated as a modest shoreline serving wheat ranchers, the cattle trade, and other local business in Van Buren. Its revenues were modest at best, making few returns on the N.P.'s investment.

This situation changed radically in the late 1890s, when ambitious businessmen in Van Buren began to push for the establishment of an electric interurban railroad serving Baker, Charbonneau, and Union Counties, and possibly even as far as the Idaho capitol of Boise. Speeches were given, lectures held, meetings convened, and many newspaper editorials penned. Rather than begin fresh, several prospective railroad barons approached the N.P. with an offer to buy the W.W.&V.B.R.R.. The N.P. found their offer less than impressive but countered with a proposed ten-year lease, which was signed in 1901.

Thus was born the Charbonneau Electric Railway Light & Power Company. Working to very light, trolly-like standards, the C.E. expanded outwards from Van Buren, sending a branch out to the hot springs at Lithia and another southwards towards the goal of reaching Baker City. The company also built a sawdust-powered generator station in Van Buren and plans for a hydro-electric facility at the headwaters of the Powder River. The line to Lithia began operations on December 2, 1904 but the line south to Baker was slow going, opening to Demeter, the highest point on the projected grade and general midpoint on the extension, in August 1909.

Service on the new electric interurban was provided by a pair of "steeple cab" locomotives and a small set of combination passenger motors, all operating off of 600 volts D.C. using trolley poles and wires. The company found electric service to be more economical than steam power for most of the year, except during the late Fall and the early Spring, when ice storms would often ravage the overhead trolley wires. Despite the relatively successful low-cost of operations, however, the company's traffic remained dismal, limited by the smallness of Van Buren. By 1911, a planned survey for an extension northwards, to meet the Central Railroad of Oregon's proposed electric interurban to Walla Walla, was cancelled, though the company attempted to maintain claims to its rights-of-way south of Demeter into Baker City, partially grading segments and maintaining the hope of laying rail and wire.

Despite the thin margins and the dashed dreams, the Charbonneau Electric remained in operation well through the 1920s, a tiny interurban servicing what was, and remains, the smallest county seat in Eastern Oregon. By the middle of the 1920s, however, debt caught up with the company, and the line entered default, being placed into receivership. In 1928, the Northern Pacific terminated the company's lease and, in lieu of past-due payments, assumed control of the company.

Under the control of the N.P., the C.E. became a wholly-owned subsidiary shortline, akin to the Walla Walla Valley. N.P. management quickly rationalized the system, abandoning the Lithia Branch from Siccum Junction to Lithia (I.C.C. application February 11, 1934) and then the branch to Demeter (I.C.C. application July 23, 1935). The line between Abernethy Street and the city limits west of town (Siccum Junction) was officially abandoned in the same motion as the Demeter Branch, but until the 1960s this track remained largely intact and was used occasionally to service various customers or store cars.

Surprisingly, the N.P. maintained the remainder of the line (more or less the original W.W.&V.B.R.R.), as an electric operation. This was in large part because there were no facilities for maintaining a steam locomotive at Van Buren. Additionally, the C.E. owned its own electric generation facilities, and though these remained modest, they had the added benefit of being the sole supplier of electricity to the city of Van Buren.

The successful dieselization of the Walla Walla Valley in 1940, however, laid the model for what would become of the C.E.. In 1943, the arrival of a General Electric 44-ton center cab diesel-electric spelled the end of overhead wire on the line. By the end of the year, company line crews were busily removing the copper wire, which in turn was sent to the war effort. The C.E. continued to operate as an electric utility until just after the war, in 1946, when the N.P. sold off the generation holdings to the city of Van Buren and then sucessfully petitioned the Oregon Public Utilities Commission to reclassify the remaining company as a railway rather than a power utility.

The diesel era on the C.E. was perhaps its most prosperous. A large pine mill, established during the war years to supply lumber for Lanham Act temporary worker housing, continued to pump out lumber throughout the 1950s suburban housing boom. Cattle feed remained a steady flow of traffic, as did seasonal shipments of onions, potatoes, and especially pears. The 1960s saw much of this traffic begin to decline, however, as the opening ot Interstate I-80N 1960 (today's I-84) began to siphon off traffic to trucks. By the middle of the decade, the Northern Pacific was in the midst of an attempted merger with the Great Northern, the Chicago Burlington & Quincy, and the Spokane, Portland & Seattle. The C.E. was more than sixty miles from the N.P. (at Pendleton) and no closer to any of the proposed merger partners, making it, in the eyes of merger planners, redundant. The N.P. began to openly seek a buyer for the C.E. in 1965 or '66. Interested buyers were few and far between. By the time that the planned merge took place, as the Burlington Northern (formed 1970), the C.E. remained unsold.

The slow decline of the railway, somewhat neglected while the N.P. sought buyers throughout the late '60s and early '70s, alarmed the townsfolk of Van Buren. An enterprising planner for the county government drafted a short plan (some say on the back of an envelope at the Stockman's) that showed the county's Department of Public Works could purchase and operate the line at a modest cost and, if the county fairgrounds were converted to a modern industrial park, it might even pay for itself. Thus on October 6th, 1972, the county government took title to the C.E., including its depot grounds, its single-stall carbarn, and its sole locomotive, No. 43., operating it as a D.B.A. of the Charbonneau County Railroad (CCRD).

As with many other shortline railroads of this period, the CCRD took advantage of the incentive per diem boxcar craze of the late 1970s. The railroad contracted for 50 of these cars in 1979. The cars were painted a somewhat unfortunate yellowish-green and had the railroad's logo (an abstracted freight car wheel) painted on each car. These boxcars were all turned back to the lessor by 1986, who transferred the cars to the Burlington Northern.

At takeover by the county, the line served only a handful of customers, primarily the Blue Mountain Mills pine stud operation, the Wallowa Grain Growers feed distribution facility, and Inland Foods, who the county hoped to lure into constructing a large cold-storage processing plant at the old fairgrounds but who tended to load on the house track in Van Buren. Occasionally, Groth Implement would receive heavy machinery at the depot as well. Booming lumber business through the early 1970s helped uderwrite a tie-replacement program.

The railroad at the time employed about a half dozen people, including a dedicated superintendent (who also acted as agent), a part-time chief mechanical engineer, a roadmaster and two part-time laborers, and an operating crew of two. Throughout the decade, trains usually ran every day but Sunday

Alas, the burst of energy was short-lived. Declining housing starts in the late 1970s and early 1980s cut into traffic from Blue Mountain, while a troubled livestock industry cut into feed shipments. By 1981 it was clear that if the economy didn't turn around in a big way, the railway would be a major financial loss for the county. The year 1982 was little better, and in an economizing move, operations were cut back to tri-weekly. By the end of 1983 matters seemed to be picking up a little, as Blue Mountain began to ship more lumber again, but, in December came word that the mill was to close, bought out by a larger competitor, the work to be moved elsewhere. With not enough revenue to justify expenses, the county commissioners approved the closure of the railway in March 1984, beginning abandonment proceedings at the I.C.C. later that year.

In the wake of shutdown, Inland Foods switched to trucks. To serve Wallowa Grain Growers, which still needed occasional service, the Department of Public Works took over operations, moving cars as needed, until the fall of that year, when permission was granted to Union Pacific to switch out the feed elevator. Some local enthusiasts, worked up over the history of the railroad, sought to operate tourist excursions over the route and proposed bringing in a steam locomotive as an extra draw, but to little avail. In 1987, the I.C.C. formally approved abandonment. Scrapping began a few years later, and today, there's little in Van Buren that remains, though there is still some track in place near Charbonneau Junction, and occasionally, it is possible to find spikes and other metal hardware.

Underlined numbers indicate a link to a page of pictures of that equipment.

#10- Baldwin 2-6-0, c/n 6824, blt 1883. Cylinders 17x24, drivers 57" diameter. Listed for sale May 1910 for $1,100. To Pacific Railway & Navigation Company #3, Tillamook, OR, June 1910. Scrapped December 1917.

#1- Alco-GE 760-hp (64-ton) electric motor, built April 1912. To British Columbia Electric Railway No 963, 1946. Presume scrapped.

#2- Baldwin Westinghouse Class "D" 1000-hp (60-ton) electric motor, built June 1912. To Pacific Electric Railroad, Los Angeles, California, as 1632, 1944. Scrapped 1953.

#36- General Electric 44-ton diesel-electric switcher, c/n 15037, built December 1942. Built as Charbonneau Electric Railway November 1940. Sold to Richard Samuels, Portland, Oregon, 1986.

#43- Plymouth model ML-8 (35-ton) gas-mechanical switcher, c/n ####, built April 1936. Built as Astoria Dock & Terminal No. 5 (Astoria, Oregon); to Charbonneau Electric Railway November 1940. To Charbonneau County Railroad, Decembe 1972, as No. 36. Sold to Richard Samuels, Portland, Oregon, 1983.

Coming Soon!

Credits & Author's Note