From Facebook, January 1-15, 2013



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GALLERIES INDEX

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1940-1941 picture of the inside of the Fixit Shop with Bernard and Wiltrude Wills.
Picture supplied by Ruth Wills Harper Adams.
posted on Okanogan Borderlands Historical Society, 1-4-13

Snakes on a Planet? No, but this sinuous rock formation I spotted on Mars sure looks like one.
posted by NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover 1-4-13

Maude Tucker, Luella Joplin, Abbie Newcomb, & Clara Malone.
Picutre taken late 40s or early 50s.
posted by John Jopolin, 1-5-13

Here's a shot of UP Wallace Branch train #388 passing through Manito at sunset on its way back to Spokane, Sept. 27, 1975. The train is just leaving Milw Rd trackage rights for home rails. Note the short Milw Rd siding. If you look really carefully, you will see a switch stand just before the curve in the siding; that was the switch to the wye for turning Milw Rd steam helpers on passenger trains, used until late 1953. The tail of the wye crossed the county road. — at Manito, WA.  Posted on The Milwaukee Road Lines West, 1-10

Tom Dethmers:  Rob, is all this trackage gone now, or just the Milwaukee line?

Blair Kooistra:  Both lines still there. Train is on the line to Wallace which now goes to Plummer. Track on the right is the old line to Colfax (now goes to Fairfield?)

Allen Miller:  Actually Rob, that switch is for the Milw. passing track, you can just make out the rail along the cab roof of the lead unit, the short siding is the "set out track" where any cars for Manito would be left in order to keep the passing track clear. The wye is located further east, beyond the train. both legs came off of the passing track. The switch stand at the far end of the set out track is for a derail, to keep cars from rolling out onto the passing track, which was on a downhill grade. I can make out what appears to be the top half of a crossbuck sign in the distance along the line of telephone poles that must be for where the road crosses one of the legs of the wye.

Rob Leachman:  Thanks, Allen. Yes, Blair, the old Tekoa Branch on the right presently extends as far as Fairfield. On relatively infrequent occasions Fairfield loads 50-car grain blocks.

Taken in Manito WA from nearly the same spot as Rob Leachman's 1975 view.
Here is the north bound UP Plummer turn on 7/27/2012.
A few things have changed in 37 years, but a lot hasn't.
posted by Matt Farnsworth on The Milwaukee Road Lines West, 1-10

This tiny station is Manito, Washington nestled in a barrow ditch between the paved road and a dairy farm. Pictures thanks to Allen Miller.  posted by Jane Summers on The Milwaukee Road Lines West, 5-22-11.

Jane Summers:  A barow ditch is what is beside the roadways everywhere. Here's a definition and origin hopefully. barrow pit –noun Western U.S.  A roadside borrow pit dug for drainage purposes.
Also called bar pit, bar ditch. Origin: apparently in reference to the mound of earth dug from the pit ( see barrow2 ); variants with bar perhaps from regional pronunciation of barrow.

Allen Miller:  Think this photo is around 1972-73, not long before it was torn down. Manito was closed in 1967, Mel Carver was agent there for the depot's last ten years or so of operation.

Here is a Google Earth image of Manito. You can still plainly see where the wye was located.
posted by Allen Miller on The Milwaukee Road Lines West, 1-10.