Review by Ed Quillen
Transportation – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
The White Cascade – The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America’s Deadliest Avalanche
by Gary Krist
Published in 2007 by Henry Holt & Co.
ISBN 0-8050-7705-7
EARLY IN THE MORNING on March 1, 1910, an immense snowslide hit two trains halted at Wellington, near the west portal of the 2.3-mile Cascade Tunnel of the Great Northern Railway in the state of Washington. About 100 people were killed.
This tragedy did not happen in Central Colorado, or even close to Colorado. But if you’re a railroad or history buff like me, or you have an interest in the lore of mountains and avalanches, then this is a book you won’t want to miss. It’s a gripping and well-researched story of how hard weather defeated hard work.
Hard weather was just part of a normal winter for the railroaders who moved trains across the Cascade Range in the Pacific Northwest. It’s one of the snowiest places in North America. But the winter of 1909-10 brought more snow than most winters. Storms typically lasted only a day or two, followed by a break in the weather that allowed time to clear the tracks so the trains could keep running.
But when the snow started falling on Feb. 22, 1910, it didn’t stop. It eased up once in a while, or became rain on occasion, but it continued.
The snow in the mountains to the west was not of much concern to the passengers who boarded Great Northern Passenger Train No. 25, the “Seattle Express” in Spokane that evening, or to the crew on Train No. 26, the Fast Mail, a couple of hours behind it.
But it was a worry to John H. O’Neill, the superintendent of the Great Northern’s Cascade Division. It was his job to keep the line running. Based in Everett, a few miles north of Seattle, he had reports of heavy snow. A hands-on manager, he ordered his business car attached to the next east-bound, and headed into the mountains to lead from the front in this battle.
“O’Neill faced a conundrum. There were currently two important first-class trains heading west into his territory, but only one rotary [snow plow] — the X802 — available to serve them. Should he hold the Seattle Express at Leavenworth until the Fast Mail caught up with it? If he did so, he could send the rotary ahead of both trains, giving both a newly cleared track as they made their way up the east slope of the mountains. Doing so, however, would also mean putting the Seattle Express, a train nearly as time-sensitive as the Fast Mail, several hours behind schedule.
“Alternatively, O’Neill could release the Seattle Express promptly upon its arrival at Leavenworth and, without waiting for the Fast Mail, send it up the hill with the X802 ahead of it. Assuming that the mail train wasn’t too far behind — and that the snow wasn’t drifting too quickly — the Fast Mail would still have a relatively clean track ahead of it; but those were two significant assumptions. The fierce winds on the west side of the summit might soon work their way over to the east. Did O’Neill really want to take that kind of chance with his highest-priority train?”
O’Neill had a hard week ahead of him. His hopes would rise as he managed to get the rotaries running and clear portions of the line. Then his hopes would fall as more snow fell, as wind-blown snow filled the plowed zones, as new snowslides ran and blocked the line.
The Seattle Express and the Fast Mail had been halted at Cascade, on the east side of the main 2.6-mile tunnel under the range. The westbound trains couldn’t retreat on account of slides. Nor could they advance very far west. But they couldn’t stay put, either; there wasn’t enough food remaining at the tiny siding to feed the passengers and the work crews who were trying to clear the line.
So O’Neill sent the trains ahead, through the tunnel, to be held at Wellington on the other side, where ample supplies were available. The two trains were parked on sidings there, below a hillside which did not appear to be an avalanche zone.
O’Neill had placed his own business car there, too, but he wasn’t in it much. Instead, he was out working nearly round-the-clock to get the line open, since the Great Northern was losing money and reputation every hour it was closed.
Yet it just kept snowing and blowing and blocking the line.
For four days, the 55 passengers in the stranded Seattle Express and the clerks aboard the Fast Mail passed the time — playing cards, sewing, writing letters, even listening to a Victrola. Most of them walked to the Bailets Hotel in Wellington for their meals.
Some worried about an avalanche and wanted their train moved back into the tunnel, but that didn’t seem necessary. Parking the train in the tunnel would have required moving it every time a plow train needed to come through, and no slide had ever struck the spot where the train was parked.
However, in the early hours of March 1, an immense avalanche hit the two trains, sweeping many cars and several locomotives down the hillside, and smashing the wooden cars to splinters. Nearly two weeks would pass before traffic could resume, and the last body was not recovered until July.
The exact death toll may never be known, because many temporary snow-shovelers slept in the smoking car. These men were often transients working under assumed names, and they came and went. Thus a true count was impossible, but it’s generally agreed upon that nearly 100 people died.
It may, or may not, have been the most deadly train accident in American history — that distinction often goes to the Aug. 7, 1904 wreck at Eden, Colo., a few miles north of Pueblo, where a bridge, which had been weakened by a flash flood, collapsed, killing 96 people.
But the Wellington slide was the most deadly avalanche in American history, and author Gary Krist tells an epic story here. It shifts back and forth from the vantage of the passengers to O’Neill’s struggles, examines his decisions, and provides rich details about the Cascade Mountains and the operations of the Great Northern. It follows the slide with a full account of the inquest and various legal proceedings, as well as information about the new railroad tunnel built in 1929, and various notes.
It’s the stuff of legend — passengers trapped on a snow-bound train — and Krist brings it to life in detail without ever getting bogged down.
This is a great story well-told, and well worth reading — even if it didn’t happen here.
