The Great Northern Stays: Hillyard's Railroad Shops to Grow, Quashing Talk of a Move to Newport
Great Northern surveyors lay out a quarter-million dollars' worth of new locomotive and coach shops at Hillyard — and in doing so, put to rest the rumor that the railway might pull up stakes and relocate its repair yard to Newport.
Hillyard, Wash., Dec. 20. — A party of Great Northern surveyors was in the city the latter part of last week, laying out the ground, it is claimed, for the proposed enlargement of the Great Northern shops. Plans have been made for improvements amounting to between $200,000 and $250,000. The machine shop is to be enlarged from a seven-pit to a 20-pit shop, giving increased facilities for repairing locomotives. The floor space of the coach shop will be doubled and several stalls will be added to the round house. The other buildings will also be enlarged.
With the enlargement of the shops will come the necessity of enlarging the repair and storage tracks, as these are overcrowded now.
These plans will quiet any fears that the machinists might have entertained because of frequent rumors that the shops were to be removed to Newport.
Shop officials today refused to give out any details of the proposed changes, but admitted that they are contemplated. Hillyard will now be able to handle as much repair work as any shop center on the system.
“These plans will quiet any fears that the machinists might have entertained because of frequent rumors that the shops were to be removed to Newport.”
Then as now, a single large employer could make or break a railroad town — and towns competed fiercely to lure or keep one. Hillyard's machinists spent months fretting that their livelihoods would be packed off to Newport; today, communities across the Inland Northwest still fight the same anxious battle over the plants and depots that anchor local wages.
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