Fifty Candles for Western Pacific

REORGANIZATION

The Western Pacific Railroad Company had been incorporated by the bondholders a few weeks before, to operate the railway and, subsequent to the auction, the Western Pacific Railroad Corporation was chartered by the same parties as a holding company.

Charles M. Levey, who had been second vice-president of the old Company, became president of The Western Pacific Railroad Company. Under his able direction it prospered for many years. One of Levey's first actions was to engage consulting engineer J. W. Kendrick to make an independent survey toward building or acquiring feeder lines. By the terms of its mortgage bonds no branches had been built by the old Company, though Bogue had hopefully kept alive many interesting projects that had been offered. One such was an entrance into Los Angeles through the Malibu Rancho and Santa Monica. Another was a network of interurban lines to cover Oakland, Alameda and Berkeley, which the present WP management can be thankful was never built.

Tidewater Southern's "Sunburst" logo

As a result of Kendrick's studies, a 75 percent interest in the Tidewater Southern Railway between Stockton and Turlock was acquired in March, 1917, the Nevada-California-Oregon narrow-gauge line between Reno and the WP main line purchased the following May and standard gauged, and construction of a San Jose branch begun. Several other existing short lines and projects for branches were looked on with favor, but it was not possible to do everything at once. Kendrick made one poor guess when he stated in his report that: "the Oakland, Antioch and Eastern can be of no possible use to the Western Pacific." That line, now a part of WP's subsidiary, the Sacramento Northern, handles steel shipments to and from Columbia Steel at Pittsburg, a very lucrative business.

WP articulated 2-6-6-2 No. 203 built in 1917

Five heavy articulated mallet locomotives, Nos. 201-205, were ordered from American to work in the Canyon. They were 2-6-6-2's of 80,000 pounds tractive effort. A comprehensive program of building and purchasing freight and passenger cars was also undertaken. This was extremely necessary as under the old regime most of the rolling stock had been leased from the Rio Grande. The old Company had actually owned only two box cars, both of which had been foreign cars forcibly purchased after wrecks.

UNCLE SAM TAKES OVER

William Gibbs McAdoo headed the USRA in 1917

On December 28, 1917, with the United States several months a beligerent in the European War, President Woodrow Wilson seized control of the nation's railroads. The United States Railroad Administration was set up by Congress, headed by William Gibbs McAdoo, Wilson's son-in-law. On July 1, 1918, McAdoo appointed William R. Scott, vice-president of Southern Pacific, to manage that system as well as the Santa Fe Coast Lines and Western Pacific.

It was not a happy time for WP, although the USRA added ten Mikado engines, Nos. 301-310, 60,000 pounds tractive effort, to the roster, and although the Feather River Route was carrying heavy trains of war freight and "doughboys." Several of the measures introduced by Scott were bitter pills to the Western Pacific officers. One was the "paired track" operation of S.P. and W.P. between Winnemucca and Wells, 182 miles, where the tracks were parallel. Another was folding up Western Pacific's ferry and barge service on San Francisco Bay, its passenger trains being diverted to the S.P. Mole and its San Francisco freight moving via Dumbarton cutoff.

But on August 31, 1919, Colonel Edward W. Mason, who had come to WP as a car accountant ten years before and served in France with the U. S. Army Railroad Corps, was appointed Federal Manager of the Western Pacific and the road again rejoiced in a family hand on the throttle. On March 1, 1920, when complete independence was achieved again with the return of the roads to private ownership, Mason became general manager, and later vice-president and general manager, a post he was to hold until his retirement on June 30, 1946.

Sacramento Northern's logo

Like most railroads the Western Pacific was in deplorable physical condition when the Government relinquished control. After a year's haggling it received almost $9 million in damages. Most of the money went to purchase control, on December 23, 1921, of the Sacramento Northern Railroad, a third-rail electric line between Sacramento and Chico.

With restored individuality came much friendlier, if no less competitive, relations with the big neighbor, Southern Pacific. The paired track arrangement originally begun by Scott was discovered to be a good idea and in the mutual interest after all. It was reinstated on March 7, 1924, and an agreement for joint rates and routes was signed by which WP was to bridge at least half of the S.P. traffic between Oregon and Ogden from Winnemucca to Chico on the Sacramento Northern.

All Western railroads suffered during the roaring twenties from intensive Panama Canal steamship competition and the WP was no exception. However, its acquisition of subsidiaries and building of branch lines paid off in generally favorable results. Twenty-six more Mikados were bought, Nos. 311-336, and large additions to the rolling stock, including 2,000 refrigerator cars, were made. Upkeep of roadbed, however, left something to be desired.

Arthur Curtiss James

In 1926 Arthur Curtiss James, probably the last of the great railroad financial giants, added control of WP to his large holdings in Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Burlington and other Western railroads. A new era in the history of Western Pacific began at once.

James was the son of a man who had been one of "Empire Builder" Jim Hill's principal lieutenants. Railroads were in his blood. There was plenty of money in his pockets, too, for he had just sold the El Paso and Southwestern to the S.P. after that Company had blocked his plans to extend it to the Pacific.

Harry M. Adams had left his WP job as freight traffic manager years before. A Union Pacific career had culminated in his recent retirement as vice-president, traffic. James called him back to activity to make him president of Western Pacific. Complete renovation of the property was begun at once. Banks were widened, ties renewed and increased, and new rail laid. Sidings were lengthened in preparation for longer freight trains. The men out on the line were not forgotten either. Included in the improvement plans were 66 residences for section foremen and agents, as well as many well-built, attractive bunk houses for their crews.

Face lifting on the existing property was only part of the James program for a greater Western Pacific. His ambitious plans called for the purchase of several shortlines and the building of new branches, practically all of which, however, had been contemplated in the original Gould plans and later recommended by Kendrick's report in 1916. Of these, the following short lines were of the most import:

1) Acquisition of the trolley-powered San Francisco-Sacramento Railroad (formerly Oakland, Antioch and Eastern) between Oakland and Sacramento. This was accomplished in August, 1927, and merged, January 1, 1929, with the Sacramento Northern.

2) Acquisition of the Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railway, also electric, as a foot in the door toward the Redwood Empire. This was vetoed by the Commissions and the line was purchased by the S.P.

Of the proposed new branches, three were of major importance:

1) An extension, utilizing a portion of the Tidewater Southern, southward down the San Joaquin Valley to Fresno. After a bitter battle of words, this was barred by the regulatory Commissions who held that additional rail service in the Valley was not justified.

2) Direct rail entrance into San Francisco by means of a line up the Peninsula. This was opposed most vigorously by the S.P., but nevertheless won the approval of the Commissions. Complete rights of way were secured, but although time extensions were several times granted by the I.C.C., this project was a victim of the approaching Great Depression.

3) The third major extension, and the one which was actually built and put into operation despite desperate opposition, was the link between Western Pacific and the Great Northern now known as the Inside Gateway. WP built 112 miles north out of Keddie connecting with the Great Northern's 88-mile extension at Bieber, California. This was a most important project, making Western Pacific a north and south carrier through its connection with the Santa Fe at Stockton, in addition to being an east and west transcontinental.

The Western Pacific's part of the construction was through very rugged country. However, construction methods had improved vastly. The nine tunnels on the route were all built within a year and by the same crew - quite different from the endless pecking at Spring Garden and Chilcoot 25 years before. A tunnel had been planned at Milepost 5, near Indian Falls, but by blasting off the mountainside with a single charge, a deep cut was substituted. Fifty tons of black powder and two tons of dynamite lifted a sidehill as tall as a ten-story building, as long as two city blocks, and as wide as one.

THE LAST GOLD SPIKE

The "Inside Gateway" is completed. WP No. 204 and GN No. 3351 meet at Bieber on November 10, 1931 as WP President Harry Adams and GN President Ralph Budd shake hands from their pilots.

Arthur Curtiss James drives the final spike on the NCE at Bieber

At Bieber, on November 10, 1931, amid the icy blasts of a snow-bearing gale from the North and the equally frigid financial storms of the deepening depression, Arthur Curtiss James drove a spike of Oroville gold before several train-loads of dignitaries. After the ceremonies the guests tore down the grandstand and with it built a bonfire to keep from freezing.

No such easy refuge offered for the Nation's railroads. Traffic continued to shrink as factories closed their doors. One after another, they were going into bankruptcy. The Western Pacific Railroad Company defaulted on its bond interest due March 1, 1935. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which had already made loans to the Company in an effort to avert this outcome, now requested the officers to prepare a plan of reorganization.

SECOND REORGANIZATION

Accordingly, the WP filed a petition and plan for voluntary reorganization under Section 77, providing for a two-thirds reduction in annual charges and a 50 per cent slash in capitalization. Other plans were submitted by the James' interest (Arthur Curtiss James had died in 1941) and it was not until 1944 that the courts finally approved a stringent plan which cut the fixed debt to a quarter of what it had been, and found the capital stock to be without equity. This, of course, had been held by the Western Pacific Railroad Corporation which the bondholders of 1916 had organized.

The $18 million program of placing the railroad in first-class shape which James had turned over to President Adams in the late twenties had been only half completed. By now the depression starved railroad was down at the heels again. A three-year rehabilitation program was initiated in 1936 with R.F.C. funds, while the road was still undertrusteeship. It was actually a delayed continuation of the James plan.

Eighty-five pound rail through the Feather River Canyon was replaced with 112-pound steel. Ten Mountain-type passenger engines (Nos. 171-180) wer bought from the Florida East Coast Railway in 1936 and eliminated helper engines on varnish trains. Eleven more Mallets were added in 1938. Passenger cars were modernized with air-conditioning and new freight cars were added. Faster through schedules to the East had become possible with the Rio Grande's completion of the Dotsero cutoff and use of the Moffat Tunnel in 1934.

EMC FT 4-unit locomotive sets arrived just in time to help with the wartime traffic explosion

And so it was that Pearl Harbor and what followed found Western Pacific in excellent shape. More than 700 miles of main line track had been laid with 100 and 112-pound rail. Among the 150 WP locomotives were 17 heavy Mallets, capable of handling most freight trains without helpers. In addition 10 engines were leased from the Rio Grande and three from the Duluth Missabe & Iron Range. Furthermore, three 5,400 hp. diesel-electric road freight locomotives were ordered in 1942 and received the following year. These three engines were operated as a "flying squadron" anywhere on the line as traffic conditions required. Only one other railroad, the Santa Fe, had preceded WP in the use of diesel-electric road engines for freight service.

It was fortunate that the railroad was so well prepared, for traffic soared far beyond the most optimistic day dreams of the past. Freight more than doubled during the first year of the war while passenger business went up 600 percent. Both kept climbing. It was not unknown for the Exposition Flyer, the road's only through passenger train, to go out in as many as eight sections.

Daily engine utilization had to be materially increased, and was. Yard facilities were enlarged. And in the Canyon, which otherwise would almost certainly have developed into an operating bottleneck with the great number of trains that were rolling, centralized traffic control was installed at a cost of almost $1 1/2 million. The first stretch, between Portola and Belden, went into operation in late 1944 and was extended to Oroville by June, 1945.

With this heavy traffic came prosperity to the reorganized company. The funded debt was reduced from $38 million to $20 million, while regular dividends were paid.

Charles Elsey had become president in 1932. He had joined Western Pacific as assistant treasurer in 1907, while the first rails were being laid, and had seen the recurrent fat and lean years that followed. As president, he had guided it through the Depression and through the War which followed. Under his leadership three projects had been started that would prove the firm foundation of the railroad's future-dieselization, centralized traffic control, and the California Zephyr. At 68, he decided it was time to retire.

Retirement was also breathing down the neck of his logical successor, Harry A.Mitchell, who had succeeded Colonel E.W. Mason as vice-president and general manager in July, 1946. Mitchell had come to WP as president of the Sacramento Northern. And now he became chief executive of the parent road for the first six months of 1949. A feature of his administration was the debut of the California Zephyr, an event that the men and women of Western Pacific had awaited impatiently for more than a decade. 

For it was during the latter part of 1937 that Western Pacific, Rio Grande and Burlington first laid plans for a daily, diesel-powered streamliner between San Francisco and Chicago. A downward business trend the following year put the plans on the shelf. The War put them on ice.

Screen star Eleanor Parker, assisted by California's Lieutenant Governor Goodwin Knight, christens the California Zephyr on March 19, 1949. At left is WP President Harry A. Mitchell. Next day the sleek vista-dome streamliners went into service and met phenomenal pblic acceptance.

In the long run it was just as well. For on November 16, 1947, the General Motors experimental Train of Tomorrow arrived at Salt Lake City and when the Western Pacific officers had boarded it at Portola and found their way into its domes, they realized at once that only a vista-dome train would do. Orders for the California Zephyr equipment had been placed with The Budd Company in the fall of 1945, but because of the backlog of orders, work on the cars had not been started, and the specifications were altered to provide five vista-domes on each of the six trains necessary for daily service.

The California Zephyr went into service on March 20, 1949. Never has a new train met with more immediate and complete popular acceptance and become a national by-word.

WP President Whitman and Vice-President and General Manager Munson on line

For the best man to succeed Mitchell as President, the Western Pacific Directors had combed the country. They found him in Frederic B. Whitman, who had already established a nationwide reputation for advanced railroad management practices and was then general superintendent of the Burlington, as President Levey had once been. Whitman came to the property in late 1948 as executive vice-president and became chief executive on July 1, 1949.

As his right-hand man, he brought Harry C. Munson, assistant general manager of the Milwaukee Road to be vice-president and general manager.

During the four years in which Whitman has been president, he has firmly established the Western Pacific not only as a first-class transcontinental line, but as a leader in railroad progress as well. The road is now completely dieselized, completely under centralized traffic control (except for paired track, extensions and branches). Switches are kept free of snow by automatic heaters operated from the same traffic control boards, and slide detector fences flash their warnings there also. Switch engines and yardmasters are joined by radio. So are the WP tugs on the Bay and soon road engines and cabooses will also be radio equipped. Car ownership has been materially increased.

Pullman built 40' PS-1 "Compartmentizer" box car

With these technological advances have come faster schedules and top-bracket operating records. By various standard criteria of railroad service and efficiency such as "gross ton miles per freight train hour," "car miles per car day," "train miles per freight train hour," etc., Western Pacific is now usually found among the upper few and often at the top. The road has also become recognized as a pioneer of improved equipment. It was first to buy and make available to shippers of fragile merchandise the "Compartmentizer" box cars which have been so successful in reducing damaged lading; first to try out and buy the Budd rail-diesel cars which are now being ordered all around the world; first with many similar projects. And the public, largely, knows this.

Partly due to growing pride in their railroad and partly as a result of the candid, impartial and enlightened human relations policies which President Whitman has introduced, the men and women of Western Pacific are finding, more than ever, satisfaction in being part of a great enterprise. Many of the elders remember how in the lean years they had heard their railroad called the "Wobbly." They hadn't liked it. Nevertheless, they had gone ahead with the job and often performed near-miracles of operation with little more than bare hands. Now, they enjoy the change. Half a century has passed since the "Preliminary Meeting" on March 3,1903. These fifty years have seen the world change more than fifty centuries before them. These fifty years have also proved that the Western Pacific project was, despite its ups and downs, a sound business concept and a necessary development in the public interest. That the revolutionary changes in American life did not lessen but rather increased the need for their railroad is a tribute to the pioneers of Western Pacific.

The owners of a pretty ankle no longer need fear jail if she shows it. But the college professors are still talking about the evils of football. Trains and railroads differ greatly from those of fifty years ago. But essentially they are much the same. Fifty years from now, someone writing the history of Western Pacific will very likely make a similar observation about the first century.

All aboard for the second fifty years!

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