When the Hills Tried to Wash Away the Railroad
A series of massive landslides repeatedly blocked the Seattle & Montana tracks, forcing a superintendent into the muck and halting all rail traffic between Seattle and Everett.
The story, cleaned up
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The blockade on the Seattle & Montana road between Seattle and Everett is now complete. Nearly every hill on this part of the line has taken a notion to indulge in a bath in the Sound. Superintendent Copeland’s crews worked tirelessly, but couldn’t keep the hills off the tracks. In one instance, a train attempted to return to Seattle, only to be surrounded by fresh slides. In another, a slide was so huge that it snapped telegraph wires fifty feet from the track. Superintendent Copeland, frustrated by the constant repairs and the $150-a-day maintenance cost, even took a header into the mire himself. Traffic is currently being handled by boat until the tracks can be cleared.
“Nearly every hill on this part of the line has taken a notion to indulge in a bath in the Sound.”
Geographic instability has plagued transportation routes in the Pacific Northwest for over a century. This incident, while a product of 1893, mirrors the perennial vulnerability of the rail and road corridors connecting Seattle to the north, which still struggle with landslide risks today.
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