Wrecked in the West - Working on the St. Maries Wrecker in the 1970s
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- Опубликовано: 1 авг 2024
- Cascade Rail Foundation is pleased to present this compilation of home movies filmed by Milwaukee Road carman Francis (Frank) Lex. He filmed these scenes of derailments being cleaned-up while working on the wrecker crew based at St. Maries, ID from the late 1970s to the end of operations in early 1980.
This digital copy of Frank Lex's films was donated to Cascade Rail Foundation by his son Craig Lex.
This is a DRAFT version of the presentation. Many of the scenes have not been identified yet. If you have information about any of the events depicted in this presentation, please contact us at www.milwelectric.org/contact/.
The Milwaukee Road was a spectacular mess in it's final years. This film almost made me physically ill watching the destruction and damage. The lines out West and the great people that worked there deserved much better than they got. Great film, thanks!
Thank you Cascade rail for posting this video about the Milwaukee Road. My late father worked for this railroad in Chicago until he retired in the mid 70s. It gives us railfans a chance to look at railroading in the 70s. Great video and Milwaukee Road employees who worked hard to transport the nations goods and to the wrecking crew! Again thank you!
The destructive force in a derailment is incredible. What the wrecking crews did with the equipment of the times is heroic. The lives lost in those wrecks. . .
Thank you for finding this footage, kinda lets you see how things have changed. And not
Looking into the breadth& widthof the human ♥️& 🧠not much change just since neanderthals...loved Milwaukee road 1949-1980..( sorry for editorial,just agree 💯 w/ your last line)
This is an amazing video. Thank you so much for sharing it here. I'm a life-long Milwaukeean and grew up in the late '60's and '70's. Seeing my hometown's name on the side of hundreds of railcars and locomotives was a source of pride until the company had been run into the ground. Very sad to see what became of a once proud company, especially with the deaths of dedicated workers. The railroad's end in the '80's corresponded with the end of most of the city's once-dominant breweries and large manufacturers. The land the Milwaukee Road shops occupied is now a parking lot for the Brewer's stadium and much of the nearby railyards have been converted to parkland. One could easily make the case that the city is better off now but there is not a trace of the railroad left here, which is sad to those of us who appreciate history. Again, many thanks to you.
Amazing. Thanks to Mr. Lex (and his son) for all of this MILW history.
My Dad was an engineer on the Milwaukee Road, believe me it took a huge toll on him...especially the Pandora wreck. I went to school with one of the engineers kids in that wreck.
I just found this. I donated the films years ago. Unfortunately, I don't remember many details other than the Pandora wreck. My Dad was always taking pictures and he did say that he caught a little ribbing from from the crew for his camera work while the work was being done by everyone else. During the final years of the Milwaukee. Rd. the money going into track maintenance really dried up which made derailments not uncommon. Clearing the wreck quick to get new track laid in order to open the line and use crane cars for clean up and open revenue traffic was the plan. He took me up the St. Joe and showed where the wreck was there and the BNSF running on the other side of the river. The original films where donated to Washington State Historical Society Research Center in Tacoma, WA. In addition many, many slides were donated to a Milwaukee Rd alumni group outside Missoula, MT.
Enjoy.
craig lex Thank you for sharing these, it's literally like death by a thousand cut backs. Government policy is hostile towards rail as a mode. Roads are not expected to be profitable to survive.
craig lex, your father was one hell of a man. It's nice to see that he documented the wrecks like this. I would have loved to shake his hand. Takes a big pair to do that work. My hats off to you and your family, from southern Illinois.
Craig, these are classic videos! Thanks for the share. I spent my early years going back and forth from Seattle to Aberdeen, SD. The Orange and Black tracks were right beside us all the way there and back. Great memories!
Mo Bouk
Scene 19 - Bridge FF-2, 1 miles west of Cle Elum (Wash.) between Cle Elum and Easton, View West. 1977
Scene 23 - 1976 Milwaukee Road Wreck: MILW washout/derailment that occurred west of Othello WA.
Your donations are most appreciated. Lawyers and accountants remove the humanity from the industry.
Great find. Wonderful preservation to take the time and effort to capture these images and digitize them. It appears the photographer had nice, reliable 8mm cameras because the film quality looks very good. Thanks for posting for many to enjoy.
Literally a train wreck you are morbidly fascinated by, can't look away from. I knew the MLW was in bad shape toward its last years but this is beyond imagination. I lived in Ellensburg in the late '70s, and developed a fascination with the Milwaukee, which cut right through the campus of Central WA State College. When a train came through campus, rather than a smooth zinging sound, like on a well-kept railroad track, it was accompanied by an ungodly clattering of the wheels bouncing over the dips in the rails and the gaps in the rail ends, the train wobbling back & forth, probably doing 35-40mph, and sounding like it was doing 70. I got it in my fool head one day I wanted to hitch a ride on it back to Seattle. Although there was a passing track there, I couldn't remember a train slowing down there at all during the year I had been there, so I hitched a ride all the way over to Othello (farther east than Seattle was to the west!), knowing they stopped there for crew change. I waited there for hours (I have learned since then that days could pass before a train came through in those days). When one finally did show up, I looked for a likely place for my first freight train ride. Not being a savvy hobo, and finding the train being almost exclusively TOFC, I got on a flatcar under a trailer. I spent the next 12 hours or so in utter misery as the train bounced and lurched, the trailer also bouncing up and down a few feet over my head, through the early April cold. I see now that I could have easily wound up under a pile of trailers. Not to mention freezing to death, suffocating in the Snoqualmie tunnel, or any number of other mishaps.
As for the video, this was great! The bonus footage of the dome ride through Glacier Park on the classic GN Empire Builder was worth the price by itself!
Incredible video! Thanks for posting. Your Dad would be happy, I'm sure, knowing his films are still being enjoyed. God bless
Great video. It's hard to believe the amount of destruction these derailments cause.
Hi Craig thank you for bringing this to us, Its an awful job Salvage of any kind, I know the first priority is to get the line back up and running But there is more to it than that, These guys do a brilliant job and should be recognised for it Out there you guys stand and take a Bow. well done.
So many thanks for an insider's view of the demise of a great , and far flung system.As you go through the video, two things stand out, -the determination of the wreck crews to open the line back up, and what a close knit bunch of guys this was. Sometimes, it's not the money you make, but who you spend your days with, as you make it.There's nothing like working for a great carrier, and watching it just get bled to death a mosquito bite at a time. Ironically enough, I saw it happen in the trucking business. Wonderful to see real railroaders at work. Many thanks for sharing this.- Marty
Excellent presentation thank you for posting it.
My favorite has to be the one where the train got tangled up in the bridge, AND there were cars in the river. It’s a wonder the FRA didn’t shut it down.
So sad to believe that lives were lost in those head on train collisions and wrecks! I grieve for all the railroaders and railfans who died. So sad.
The Milwaukee Road couldn't have gotten any better in the Pacific Northwest in its final years there.
Excellent compilation, will be passing your link along ! Some Fine Work Here . .
i was a burner for two years cut up over 100 wrecked cars on the side of the tracks in the 80s i liked doing that job
I am just seeing this for the first time.
This is fantastic footage. Wow, alot of carnage for sure. Cool seeing wrecked now fallen flag railcars.
Cool watching the Big hooks in action.
Its cool that 2 of the ox cars are still there!
The head on collision at 6:30 sadly resulted in two crew deaths :/ Astoundingly Milwaukee Road #200 was rebuilt and is still in operation today as Norfolk Southern #3505
200 was the unit that the crew passed away in it looks like . Can't imagen saving it . should've been cut up and scraped
Thank you for your response, and I understand. Today's modern and extra heavy duty equipment makes the difference today. Also I sure location has a lot to do with the salvage operation.
Wow amazing footage thanks for uploading!! So sad the loss of life and I can only imagine how dangerous a job that must’ve been. And hard to believe they just rolled those freight cars down the mountain lol. Also it was sad to see all those emd locomotives turned to scrap😢.
The wreck at Pandora on 2/18/77 killed the Head Brakeman, when Freight #201 overran its orders in Dark Territory, and collided with #200 in a curved rock cut.
"Dark Territory" is where the railroad has no signals and operations are given by either train orders or track warrants only.
I had seen pictures of the 200 lead sd40. Somehow it was returned to service
@@Giratina575And was sold to Norfolk Southern.
The Milwaukee Road's wreck crews did a fantastic job salvaging whatever could have been salvaged from freight cars and cargo that the MILW never owned from the derailments. As for the MILW's own boxcars, the MILW simply discarded them and just dumped them over the side to rot. The MILW was quite frankly America's Resourceful Railroad in that respect.
That was some heartbreaking stuff right there.
This was a 'suggested' video (been watching Rob Pratt, doing mostly 1150 Rotator recovery, fella is very professional, and it's a field I may transition into in the near future)...
It's actually really good quality transfer from 8mm to digital. Also, really amazing seeing how train cars are removed from tracks and bridges.
Beautiful
Scene 5 from st Marie's looks like its the very last train to head east over the pacific extension. U36C 5802 led the last train out of Tacoma with another U36C and a few U25bs. Just like in scene 5 in this video
Video in 1977 or 78.
9:05 to 9:12. You see all the minorly damaged locomotives and then the 200 is straight up mangled to hell. Jeez
Wow does this bring back memories. I went to High School in Tekoa WA in the mid 70's where the Milwaukee crossed the valley via a long high viaduct. One evening we heard a horrible sound. A derailment had occurred only 40 yards or so east of the bridge involving a west bound freight. Did not go over or roll down the embankment though. As a budding rail fan I spent the next two days making a pest of myself. Sadly both (the Milwaukee and the UP/OWRN) of the lines that passed through Tekoa are gone now - but the "trestle" is still there...
Thanks!
Track maintenance suffers once a railroad is broke. The entire system was running under a long antiquated set of standards that were impractical and entirely inappropriate at that time. The honorific state of the Penn Central springs to mind. Daily and sometimes deadly derailments were
de rigueur through the ‘70’s.
Scene 19 - Bridge FF-2, 1 miles west of Cle Elum (Wash.) between Cle Elum and Easton, View West. 1977
Scene 23 - 1976 Milwaukee Road Wreck: MILW washout/derailment that occurred west of Othello WA.
One wonders how many of these derailments were caused by saving money on track & bridge inspection / maintenance? Over my lifetime I've seen way too much of saving money only to have it costing way more than the original savings.
a lot
Great video! Mr. Lex was quite the cinematographer; Excellent film to video transfer as well. Fascinating to watch how they untangle the derailments. I have always wondered how they could do it without making a bigger mess. When clearing the tracks in some of these situations I notice they just shove cars over the edge and down the mountain. Do they recover those cars at a later date or just abandon them? I live in Fargo, ND and I remember the Milwaukee Road still had a line that ended here when my family moved here in 1971. There is nothing left of the line now, the city has grown so much that the old right of way is now part of a bike path system. The remains of the old Milwaukee Road freight house is still standing, it suffered a major fire in the early '70s. It was partially rebuilt and houses a business now, I think.
I grew up next to the Milwaukee main line in Indiana ("lines east" or also known as the Southwestern) and for about 20 years there was a hopper car down a hillside next to a bridge we called "Four Arches" close to where I lived. I thought it was strange that they didn't try to recover it. After the Milw ceased to exist I went back there and the car was gone. I think the company that got the contract to recover the rails must have seen it and recovered it for scrap.
Obviously the TRACK INSPECTORS were asleep at the wheel . i would've refused to operate any train on that line until they fixed it up unsafe working conditions And my lawyers would have gotten a call from the whole extra board shut it down till its safe . i can really see why the milwaukee went Bankrupt . poor poor management .
Amazing number of wrecks and derailments. Freight cars, locomotives, new automobiles, bridges. Dollar amount had to be huge. I had no idea it was this bad. They should have shut it down before all this happened.
Even near 1980 there is still no graffiti on the rolling stock!
back them parents kept their kids under Control
The "gentle care" they take handling the derailed auto-shipments.. Was this during the time period the MR decreased ROW maintenance and upkeep?
yes
Milwaukee Road must have had expert wreck crews. They sure got enough practice! Seriously, it's sad to see all the damaged goods and engines, and lives & money lost. Engineers must have been very brave!
The Milwaukee Road was totally fucked up in the 1970s!
In the 1980 following the bankruptcy and reorganization the Milwaukee Road was starting to get a look from the railroad known as Grand Trunk Western or GT. Based in Michigan, the GT had a lucrative automotive business in both Detroit and Flint and it thought the Milwaukee Road was perfect in its operations. Alas, it was not to be, and in 1985 the Milwaukee Road was bought up by the Soo Line. In today's modern era the Milwaukee Road is now the Canadian Pacific. But the tracks through Montana, Idaho and Washington are not there anymore; the CP instead passes through Kicking Horse Pass and Rogers Pass in Canada.
the Gt CN rr would have done the Same thing
I wonder how many cars were just left on the side of the RR right of way?
How far back did the US railroads start thinking they could improve upon the RR tie, tie plate and spike? I think a different design could have been implemented sooner. I do know that regulation of the railroads financially strangled them until Reagan deregulated them.
Here an interesting fact - even though the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA was signed into law by Clinton, it was actually thought up by Reagan. Now that the nation's railroads were deregulated it was thought that NAFTA would be their benefit. Certainly freed up commerce from both Canada and Mexico when it was enacted, but the end result was the loss of jobs in manufacturing especially in Michigan, Detroit and Flint. It's still basically a hellhole in Flint right now. Detroit isn't doing any better either.
Those individuals who doubt the validity of OSHA haven't experienced the danger and risk that's involved with working around heavy machinery. The loss of lives and the witnessing of the related gore of a preventable accident doesn't enter the minds of Pin Head, Corporates, who consider OSHA as a mere, "pain in the ass." The expense of maintaining a safe workplace is only a drain to their, "Bottom Line", life means nothing compared to that dollar. A safe workplace is a right, not a privilege. It's disgusting that we have irresponsible politicians who will support those Pin Heads where, again, that dollar means everything.
William ,, If they would've put about half of the money they spent on derailments in the last 10 years of operation on new welded rail , ties and a surfacing crew they'd probably still be in business today , Of coarse they would of had to fire all the upper management and start over and restructure everything else low revenue lines got rid us ect ...
So, if a person purposely derails a train, it's a FEDERAL offense,--- but---- if accountants and CEO's wreck an ENTIRE RAILROAD, on purpose, it's OK!!??
GOT. IT!!!
OSHA does not have regulatory authority over a railroad. That would be the FRA. Please do not confuse the regulators any more than they already are
What's the wreck of Crane #44?
Scene 10 is St Joe where the highway crosses over the MILW. 14 looks to be the same wreck, different day. Scene 16 & 17 look like just east of Rosalia WA, possibly same wreck.
Craig Lex: I was a Tacoma Extra Brakeman on the crew that worked the St Maries Wrecker at the wreck at Bridge FF-2, April 1977. That is your Scene 1. It is also your Scene 19, which is mislabeled. In fact there is a shot of me in Scene 19! You can see my 35mm photography of this wreck on my Facebook pages and in four Milwaukee groups I have shared it with, including the Milwaukee Road Historical Association. Good work Lex, well done! John Crosby, former MILW trainman, Seattle, Wash. 31 May 2016.
Thanks John but I donated this and Cascade Rail appears to have posted it. My Dad had quite a bit of film but very little info for it organized and saved. You probably saw him there. Glad you enjoyed it. Craig Lex July 2016 Tacoma, WA
Thank you for the note Craig. Regardless of who owns the material your Dad should always receive photo credit on every viewing I probably talked to him over the couple days of that wreck at Bridge FF-2. His seniority district probably did not conform to mine. My seniority ended at Cle Elum on the east except for the run through trains to Othello. Thus when the St. Maries Wrecker was brought in to work the eastside of the bridge and the Tacoma Wrecker to work the westside of the bridge, both wreckers were crewed by MOW employees from their own bases but the train crews on both wreckers were out of Tacoma as this was in the seniority district for Tacoma train crews. Lots of people working that wreck and the lunch car was an active social scene. John Crosby
No sound, no music (I'm adding music)
John Crosby
PS, I donated the original 8mm film to The Washington State Historical Society in Tacoma, Washington if anyone is interested
This had to be one of the most poorly managed railroads in history. Topped by the fact that the pencil pushers said the Pacific Extension was operating at a net loss after double entering the expenses, when in it was actually still pulling a profit! This and the Penn Central fiasco are two definitive ways of how NOT to run a railroad.
it was losing money even with out double Entering the Expenses. the Up was thinking about Buying the Pac Coast ext, the Uprr found out they were losing a lot of money
@@dknowles60Cite your source . Not your opinion.
Is that how they clear the tracks in what I assume is a remote location? Just heave it over the side and leave it where it lands?
They came back later to recover them if, they could be recovered.
Oh and lets not forget these crews did not have two weeks of classroom training watching safety videos ... this was when men worked for real railroads
Pandora: what a tragedy.
The fact that they think it's ok to send Freight Cars tumbling down the mountainside is beyond me.
When they were leaving the PNW, they sent out trains to gather all the derailed/ damaged cars they could. I think they got most of them, but there still are a couple out there somewhere.
Sad Milwaukee road is gone no money to fix the tracks so derailments happened
Does anyone know if the boxcar wreck heading towards summit is still there
If you are referring to the one at Pine Creek, I believe
they still are there.
@@user-mr3ct1dm9p nope it starts in Piedmont Montana. then it goes to pipestone creek
Any info on the Pandora wreck in scene 6? Looks horrible.
+Matt D see therock1410 above
The Milwaukee Road must have had some seriously high insurance deductibles!
You're kidding ? In scene one; 'over the side'. I'll bet that would not pass now !
The wrecking crews did a good job salvaging whatever they could with other railroads' equipment, but the Milwaukee Road simply discarded its own equipment just like mere garbage. Didn't care if the car was loaded or not; the wreckers just flipped the car over the side. No bye bye, no nothing.
lol! They almost all go over the side nowadays. They don’t bother trying to salvage most of them any more. Just get the line open and then scrap them on site later.
All those Omnis and Horizons would need a lot of body work before they were put on the dealer's lots, lol.
Those were crushed/scrapped, and written off. Never got close to the dealers.
Now they outsource this kind of work to specialty companies.
Did not give a hoot, short-sighted management, kinda like most companies today.
was the
Was the Milwaukee one of the railroads incorporated into Amtrak or did it just go out of business?
Why were these cars pushed of the side? Did they not have the proper equipment back then to salvage these cars
Gary Plastek Economically It was not worth salvage so they pushed them off. Sometimes if the danger of loosing the rescue equipment or the risk of injury,they will abandon equipment. Alot of the this MILW equipment is still there to this day.
+UG-RailTrance Before they shut down Lines West, they pulled up as much rail and scrap as they could to sell. They fished all the cars out of the drink and along the ROW and strapped them to flats, or set them on wheels, and ran dozens of "hospital" trains. The cost of cleanup (lawsuits, etc) after the Milwaukee disappeared ultimately led to the demise of parent corporation CMC in 2010.
@@XxXGhostXxX417 Not only MILW did this. In the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, in the late 1970s a newish double-deck electric car went over the edge during a salvage operation. They were going to leave it there, but apparently because it was in a National Park, the NSW Railways had to go down and get it, too. Must've cost a bit!
@@pkranz937OH, so the parent Corp. went broke/ out of business then, too. GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I live in St maries
Jennifer here. How's things going in Idaho? I'll bet the St. Maries River Railroad is doing a great job over the former Milwaukee Road.
God sakes what a mess.
i bet when the electrification era was coming to an end on the MILW, when an electric locomotive derailed, they just pushed it off the side of the mountain like all of their railcars.
Actually-- a couple were donated to museums, and the rest were scrapped. Gotta get every dollar out of the RR.
😂just impossible for me to watch this avoidable distruction . As a trainmaster struggling to maintain operations. Many man hours went into making these consets, just to have the destroyed
Train role on
@ truck partsq
H
I think I can see a good reason here why MILW ROAD went bankrupt! Couldn't keep the trains on the track!
That unfortunately is an understatement. Also couldn't keep the tracks maintained and basically just left the rails, ties and ballast to rot in the sizzling sun.
@Joe Madej Here's a fun fact: 1957 - the year the Milwaukee Road went on a decline until it went bankrupt. Check out president and CEO William Quinn. For one thing he wasn't a railroad man; he was a federal attorney and an agent for the FBI before coming to the Milwaukee Road. Remember, a railroad cannot survive with a non-railroad man in charge. That man must be a railroad man through and through before he comes to be the captain of the ship.
@Joe Madej Thanks! And also thanks to my school and my American History teacher - I learned all of this in my American History class!
@@jenniferreneekelley1560 Quinn was a high ranking offical for the BN they wanted the Milwaukee gone and gone for good .
@@bradhardy2629 nice lie and 🐂 bull crap. Mile did it to then selfs how young are you the bn was having a big power river boom in coal why would the bn care about a railroad that at best had 6 trains a day
Unbelievably painful to watch! The laws of physics are utterly unforgiving of neglect and ignorance of track-train dynamics realities. 2024/04/23. Ontario, Canada.
Wow these guys worked without safety vests, glasses, and ear plugs and lived... Osha has ruined this country
needlenosekw OSHA is not the agency that governs rail safety. That would be the FRA and many lives have been save with new safety rules in place.
You're an idiot. They have saved countless lives. Lives of someone's dad, grandfather, son, friend etc. You sure do have an ass backwards definition of something ruining a country. And like the other person said, that wasn't the work of OSHA but the FRA.
+Spam Can Correct. So many of the rules we have today were written in blood.
A few RRs adopted safety innovations voluntarily but most had to be compelled by gov't (ultimately, as is pointed out, US). Ever see an old Janney (knutckle) coupler? For years they had a slot in the knuckle to accommodate the link of a link-and-pin ("Lincoln pin") coupler and a vertical hole for the pin.
Air brakes were adopted by a few RRs but most had to be compelled. Before air brakes brakemen had to run along the boards on the roofs of cars and set the brakes by hand, jumping the gaps between the cars.
@@spamcan9208 Nice! What's the other entity involving railroads? That's it! The Association of American Railroads along with the FRA. They and the FRA have been hugely beneficial with railroad safety. Also works with railroads and the public in terms of railroad crossing safety measures and Operation Lifesaver. But these entities cannot fix stupid; you sometimes still have harebrained people still in the act of disobeying train signals and gates.
I would love to have that 70s Imperial high rail . Black of coarse . too bad the B.N officials that were calling the shots didn't give a crap about the Milwaukee Road . or its employees let alone spending a little money to fix up the road bed . I would love to see the paper work on where the hell all the money went and who approved of some of the poor poor decisions that were made . this would've never happened in this day & age the books were cooked and the maintenance DEFURRED .
How young are you the Bn called nothing the bn was having big er problems call power river coal and rebuilding it rail road to 132 lb rail
@@dknowles60 obviously you didn't realize the B.N former management went over to the Milwaukee to work then returned to the B.N to fill them in on what was what Went back over to the Milwaukee Road as managers to run it in the ground And that's what they did . Quinn was one of um . They knew the S.P container traffic was going to explode and they wanted ALL OF IT FOR THEMSELVES . The rest is History . Cooking the books to make it look like the pacific extension wasn't making any money and leasing out all their cars ect ...
@@dknowles60VERY funny, and strange that the big wheels at MILW came from/ were associated with BN or its predecessor rail companies, at a time when all the goofy things were happening to MILW.
@@user-mr3ct1dm9p wrong, the MILW was a very costly route to run. it had a lot of helper districts, or they had to over power trains and were very slow the Old Gn route was way better. Even if MILW management did every thing right they were going to go out of Business. the the most they ran 8 trains a day, that route was never going to make it on 8 trains a day
@@user-mr3ct1dm9p wrong again did the the MILW fix its tracks in the 1960 when they were making money No the the MILW even think to ask for trackage rights on the Ex Np from terry Mt to Missoula MT no , the ICC would have made the Bn give trackage rights is the MILW has Asked