The Oregon Short Line Railroad was a

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to t ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Monta ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

and

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

in the United States. The line was organized as the Oregon Short Line Railway in 1881 as a subsidiary of the

Union Pacific Railway The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

. The Union Pacific intended the line to be the shortest route ("the short line") from Wyoming to Oregon and the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Thou ...

. Construction was begun in 1881 at Granger, Wyoming, and completed in 1884 at Huntington, Oregon. In 1889 the line merged with the Utah & Northern Railway and a handful of smaller railroads to become the Oregon Short Line and Utah Northern Railway. Following the bankruptcy of Union Pacific in 1897, the line was taken into receivership and reorganized as the Oregon Short Line Railroad (“OSL”). The OSL became a part of the Union Pacific System in the Harriman reorganization of 1898.

Oregon Short Line Railway

The Oregon Short Line Railway was organized on April 14, 1881. The line started from the Union Pacific main line in

Granger, Wyoming Granger is a town along Blacks Fork near the western edge of Sweetwater County, Wyoming, United States.} The population was 139 at the 2010 census. It is located near the confluence of the Blacks Fork and the Hams Fork rivers. The geography o ...

, and reached Montpelier, Idaho, on August 5, 1882, and then to McCammon, Idaho, in the Fall of 1882. Between McCammon and

Pocatello Pocatello () is the county seat of and largest city in Bannock County, with a small portion on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in neighboring Power County, in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho. It is the principal city of the P ...

, Idaho the line was shared with fellow Union Pacific subsidiary Utah & Northern's grade by adding a third rail to the

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

track to accommodate the cars. The line from Pocatello to Huntington, Oregon, was completed in late 1884. Access to Portland, Oregon, was on track leased from the

Oregon Railway and Navigation Company The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (OR&N) was a railroad that operated a rail network of running east from Portland, Oregon, United States, to northeastern Oregon, northeastern Washington, and northern Idaho. It operated from 1896 as a ...

. The line was essential because the Union Pacific main line ended in Utah where it met the

Central Pacific Railroad The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete the western part of the " First transcontinental railroad" in North America. Incor ...

, which by that time was part of the

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

. The Southern Pacific had built tracks as far east as El Paso,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, and would, in 1883, become a transcontinental railroad in its own right. The Southern Pacific then started routing traffic to the southern line, cutting off the Union Pacific, which needed other access to the Pacific coast. The Oregon Short Line also was meant to halt the OR&N's continued eastward expansion at the Idaho-Oregon border.

Oregon Short Line and Utah Northern Railway

In 1889, the Oregon Short Line Railway merged with Utah & Northern Railway and 6 other smaller railroads to form the Oregon Short Line and Utah Northern Railway. In 1890 the company finished converting the original Utah & Northern line from

to , a process that U&N had started as early as 1885. On October 13, 1893, the OSL&UN went into receivership with the rest of the Union Pacific holdings. The Oregon Short Line Railroad was incorporated in February 1897 and purchased the property of the OSL&UN later that month. On March 15, the OSL took possession of the line and started operating. The OSL was independent for a short period of time until October 1898 when the newly reformed Union Pacific Railroad took control of a majority of the board of directors. During the early part of the

20th century The 20th (twentieth) century began on January 1, 1901 ( MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 ( MM). The 20th century was dominated by significant events that defined the modern era: Spanish flu pandemic, World War I and World War II, nucle ...

the railroad publicized tours of

Yellowstone National Park Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowst ...

by way of a spur constructed from

Idaho Falls Idaho Falls ( Shoshoni: Dembimbosaage) is a city in and the county seat of Bonneville County, Idaho, United States. It is the state's largest city outside the Boise metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the population of Idaho Falls was 6 ...

, Idaho to West Yellostone, Montana. In 1938, Union Pacific began consolidating operations and leased for operation a number of its subsidiaries including the Oregon Short Line. The railroad operated under the lease until December 30, 1987, when the OSL was fully merged into the Union Pacific Railroad.

References

External links

* http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/main/idovrntr.htm * http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/geog/rrt/part3/chp7/58.htm * http://www.yellowstonehistoriccenter.org/trains.php {{authority control * 3 ft gauge railways in the United States Former Class I railroads in the United States Predecessors of the Union Pacific Railroad Defunct Idaho railroads Defunct Nevada railroads Defunct Montana railroads Defunct Oregon railroads Defunct Utah railroads Defunct Wyoming railroads Railway companies established in 1897 Railway companies disestablished in 1987 1881 establishments in Oregon American companies disestablished in 1987

Oregon Short Line Railway

Oregon Short Line and Utah Northern Railway

See also

References

Further reading

External links