Paul Ward's Collection
Spokane & Inland Empire System RPO/Baggage #42 at the Spokane interuban terminal about 1910.  The car was built for the Coeur d'Alene & Spokane Railway about 1906 and operated on the 32 mile line as part of the Spokane & Inland Empire Railway until the system was broken up in 1919 by bankruptcy proceedings. The S& I E RR was a complete system on city and interurban lines covering 291 miles of track with 67 city motor cars, 36 interurban passenger cars, 21 trailers, 438 freight cars, 34 work cars, ten electric locomotives and four steam engines in 1913. 660 volt DC was used excpt 6600 AC on the very long lines to Colfax and Moscow. Car 42 was DC. Great Northern Railway held controlling interest in S & I E Ry. In 1919, the reorganization created three separate companies, Spokane United Railway (urban), Spokane & Eastern Ry 600 V, and  Inland EmpireRR. Great Northern Ry lost out in the 1919 reorganization,but bought back in in 1927 renaming the interurbans Spokane, Coeur d' Alene & Palouse Ry. In 1926, to attract the G.N.Ry as a purchaser, buses were substituted for hourly interurban trains to Coeur d' Alene, except for two passenger round trips for the RPO and Railway Express service. These continued until 1941. Freight was dieselized in 1943 and the tracks merged with Great Northern. The cars never left home, just changed names. The 1939 passenger service curtailment was to Colfax and Moscow on the long 6600 v AC lines which used pantographs for AC and trolley pole for DC in the city.
Caption data by Ed Tennyson and Roy King Back to Paul Ward's page
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