By Elane Dickenson of the Wallowa County Chieftan 

   The first Eagle Cap Excursion train traveled through time from Union County into Wallowa County last Saturday, taking passengers back to an era where the scenery passed by slowly enough to savor and no one was in a hurry for the journey to end. 

   “Isn’t this just wonderful” and similar comments summed up the  prevailing mood. A total of 144 paying passengers, plus an assortment of workers and guests, rode the rails from Palmer Junction about 15 miles out of Elgin to the old Wallowa County Grain Growers grounds at Wallowa.   The 30 rail miles was  covered in a liesurely  three hours, with a couple of stops along the way  because the passenger train was ahead of schedule.

   Rolling along the river, everyone occasionally waved to groups of floating rafters and, after passing the Minam bridge, to a spattering of motorists waiting along the  highway to take photographs.
   The excursion train consisted of an engine, nicely painted in Idaho Northern green, pulling four scruffy cars, all accented in rust, including two passenger cars with padded, reclining seats, a dining car with tables and chairs, and a baggage car, which carried lunch supplies,  drinks and the generator that kept the lights lit through the rest of the train. There were even two restrooms, one for the gents and one for the ladies, newly painted for this special run.
   The passengers walked freely between the moving cars, with resident shutterbugs often found at the open platforms between the cars. A large crowd had gathered in Wallowa to greet the railroad riders, with the Wallowa High School band contributing to the ceremonial feel of the the occasion.

   Saturday’s inaugural ride was a fund raising benefit organized by the 2003 Leadership Wallowa County group. It has been meeting for nine months with the train ride as its community service project, a kind of pre-graduation finale. The nine-member group was scheduled to have its graduation ceremony Wednesday  this week.
   The goal was to raise money to refurbish the old railroad cars and and the engine, soon to be owned by the Wallowa Union Railroad Authority, to tie them together with a color scheme of blue and silver.
   While the bills were still being added up early this week, it was expected that after all expenses were taken out, approximately $19-20,000 will be donated to the Friends of Joseph Branch group for the refurbishing project.

   In a separate event the night before, the Leadership Union County group had put on a bowling tournament and dinner benefit in La Grande for the same cause that  raised approximately $5,000.
   The Saturday excursion hosted by the Wallowa County  group included a festive evening dinner at Cloverleaf attended by about 175, and including an auction of savory desserts, conducted by leadership group member Bob Keyser, who added to the tone of the day  dressed in grey-striped railroad overalls and hat. He even auctioned off his hat for $50 for the cause.

   Part of the evening was spent putting four local men –  Ralph Swinehart, Friends of the Joseph Branch president Bob Casey, Wallowa County Commissioner Mike Hayward and county planning director Bill Oliver  – on trial for their roles in the “lost cause” conspiracy to buy the Joseph branch railroad last year. With Joseph High School drama students playing the roles of judge, prosecutor and defenders, all four defendants were found “guilty” by the audience. Money collected from the crowd, however, sent only one of the criminals, Ralph Swinehart, to the stocks with a pie thrown in his face as punishment by Oliver’s 5-year-old son. Kai. Engineer Swinehart is now a big booster of the Joseph Branch, but it is suspected that his initial support of a rails to trails proposal earned him the messy punishment.

   The branch is now owned by the Wallowa Union Railroad Authority, and most of its nine-member board were among those who rode the rails Saturday. State Senator David Nelson of Pendleton was also among the  passengers.
   “We didn’t know if it would work, but we felt we had to try,” said Hayward in a short speech Saturday night.  “It’s going to take this kind of effort from everyone to make this a success. ... We need to have everyone talking on the same page. ... Let’s get on board and make it happen.”

   Because of a variety of obstacles to overcome, including the unexpectedly expensive proposition of opening the railroad again between Wallowa and Joseph, a regular tourist excursion train is not expected to run this summer. However, plans are in the works to make the next run Labor Day weekend, and a regularly sceduled Eagle Cap Excursion by next summer. All aboard!

(OMED: with the loss of timber jobs, many communities on the east side have two choices.  Join the many frontier ghost towns that dot the high desert, or join hands and work for ways to make their lives better.  Wallowa County is chock full of pioneers who refuse to fade away.)

© 2003 Wallowa County Chieftan  Photo by the author.