A Little Prototype History...

So why does the Camas Prairie Railroad exist?  A little historical context, for those who don't already know, follows to give you an idea of where I am headed with my railroad model...

Washington's "Inland Empire" consists of roughly the eastern third of Washington.  The area has rich soil and is one of the great grain growing areas of the United States.  During the late 1800's, the Oregon-Washington Railway and Navigation Company, later known as the Union Pacific, and the Northern Pacific built secondary mainlines and branch lines to every little community in the region.  The Great Northern also purchased upstart independent railroad lines that were built through the area.

The result:  Lots of competition, but also significant cost.  There was considerable traffic during harvest periods, but otherwise, these lines generated little revenue for the railroads that operated them. Additionally, with one or two other railroads to compete with, the railroads were struggling to earn return on the many lines they had built.

Lewiston, Idaho, at the confluence of the Snake & Clearwater Rivers, was already a significant community of almost 1000 people in the late 1800's.  One of many stops on the Lewis & Clark expedition 60 years earlier, the city of Lewiston was founded in 1861, and served as the first capitol of the Idaho territory.  Lewiston was the gateway to vast agricultural and timber lands in north central Idaho.

By 1893, the Northern Pacific Railway had extended one of their eastern Washington lines as far south as Genesee, Idaho, about 15 miles north of Lewiston, but had been unable to survey a successful route into Lewiston.  Genesee, on the Palouse prairie, is slightly under 3000 feet in elevation, while Lewiston is slightly over 700'!

Northern Pacific, after finding a circuitous route with steep grades, extended their line to Lewiston in 1898.  The Northern Pacific had Lewiston to itself for the next several years, with no significant competition.

Built in 1908, the Lewiston depot served as the Camas Prairie Railroad's headquarters into the early 1980's This image was taken in 1975, photographer unknown

The Oregon-Washington Railway and Navigation Company had stern wheel boats traveling the Snake River from its confluence with the Columbia River, but had no rail line to serve Lewiston.  With the NP reaching Lewiston by rail, the O-WR&N built a line from its original Spokane mainline station of Texas City (later Riparia) to Lewiston.  Their water level route was completed in 1907.

During the period which the NP was in Lewiston on its own, it started to build branch lines to reach the towns along the Clearwater River.  The NP also sought to build a line atop the Camas Prairie region of central Idaho, to access the fertile land and its potential traffic.  The NP was well under way, and in the process of building its line up the famed Lapwai Creek canyon, when the O-WR&N announced its plan to also build a line to the Camas Prairie.  With two railroads building to the prairie, a repeat of the experience in Washington's Inland Empire would occur, marginalizing revenue potential and returns on investment.  

The NP and O-WR&N had become bitter business rivals since James J. Hills acquisition of the NP in 1893,  yet two railroad lines to the Camas Prairie made little sense for either company.  Additionally, the NP was at a disadvantage for hauling its traffic off the Camas Prairie and out of Lewiston as it had to ascend a steep and twisty route on its way to Spokane before traffic got to the transcontinental mainline.  O-WR&N had its water level route and a better way out of the Snake River Valley.

A compromise was struck in 1908, whereby a separate operating company would operate the line from Lewiston to Grangeville on the Camas Prairie and the line from Lewiston to Texas City.  The subsidiary would be an operating company only, taking care of both railroads interests as well as the shippers locally.  Both the NP & O-WR&N would supply the locomotives, rolling stock, employees, maintenance   equipment, etc. on an equal basis.  They would also share revenue based on which railroad received the business beyond the operating company.  The new operating company was named the Camas Prairie Railroad, after the region in Idaho it served.

Logging and sawmills were another source of traffic that rapidly increased in the early years of the 20th century.  The NP built a branch line from a junction point near Lewiston, up the Clearwater River 76 miles to Stites.  The line served many towns along the river that added addition timber and grain traffic.

An aerial view of the Clearwater mill about 1950...An NP 0-6-0 is in the foreground switching the paper mill

The Clearwater Timber Company built a massive sawmill just east of Lewiston in the mid 1920's, and needed a substantial amount of saw logs to supply the mill.  This prompted the O-WR&N (now Union Pacific) and Northern Pacific to build a line from Orofino, on the Stites branch, to Clearwater Timber's logging camps based in Headquarters, Idaho.  The line was complete in 1928 and it as well as the Stites line were placed under the Camas Prairie operating company.  Clearwater Timber merged with two other local companies several years later to form Potlatch Forest Industries.  PFI became the single biggest shipper on the Camas Prairie, with its Clearwater Mill in Lewiston, several smaller mills along the Camas Prairie lines and the logging operation at Headquarters.

From this point until the railroad was sold by Union Pacific and Burlington Northern in the late 1990's, the Camas Prairie Railroad made it living handling forest and agricultural products.  Many opportunities and challenges came and went during the years, but the basic operation of the railroad didn't change.