Railroad mainline subject of museum lecture

MOSES LAKE — The days when the railroad was the way in and out of central Washington – and an economic lifeline – will be the subject of a lecture at 3 p.m. Wednesday at the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center.

Dan Bolyard will talk about “The Great Northern Mainline” and its impact on central Washington. Admission is free. The lecture is part of the museum’s “Salon Series,” which focuses on regional history and Washington authors.

Among other things – including writing a weekly cooking column for the Columbia Basin Herald – Bolyard is a railroad historian and author of the 2015 book, “Big Bend Railroads.” Bolyard also has a website on central Washington railroad history, bigbendrailroadhistory.com.

The railroad was the engine of development in central Washington at the turn of the 20th century. The Wenatchee-Spokane section was completed in 1893, Bolyard said. “If it wasn’t for the railroad, a lot of the people that settled here would not have.” The railroad remained the best way to get to and from Spokane until the development of the highway system in the 1950s.

The railroad left its mark on the landscape, and Bolyard said he will talk about some of those places, “and how things have changed over the years.” The railroad has changed course between Quincy and Wenatchee, and “you can see the old line snaking above the current tracks.”

The train could make or break a community back in the early days; the arrival of the tracks and regular service were a cause for celebration. Trains helped build Grand Coulee Dam, using a purpose-built railroad to haul construction materials, including five million tons of cement, to the isolated site.

The line has had its share of incidents and accidents, he said, and he has pictures of some of them, including a 1963 collision near Quincy that killed three people. The train was stopped; the crew should have moved it off the main line but didn’t. Bolyard will tell the story of the resulting accident, “the carnage that happens when engines collide.”

The line has suffered its share of floods and fires. Bolyard took photographs of a spectacular fire in the grain elevators at Wilson Creek in early 2016, and will discuss the fire and other incidents along the line.

People who have questions about the lecture, or about any of the museum’s programs or exhibits, can contact museum officials at 509-764-3830.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.