Talk:Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway

[ --Slambo 21:42, 7 July 2006 (UTC) ]

Untitled
To attain FA class: Featured articles

To attain A class: How to write a great article. Needs a good introductory paragraph. I made a first draft.

To attain GA class: Good article
 * Need fill in the half-dozen instances of in some way.  See flags in Notes and references.  Sallal Prairie, Rattlesnake Prairie, Rattlesnake Mountain might appear on USGS maps or hiking and trail websites.  The medallion and a couple images would be nice (see Further reading).  See WP:Images; images first printed in the early 1900s and earlier generally have Copyrights copyright expired.


 * Finding the following could be useful: logo_filename= (logo_size= ) marks=  --03:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

B class: Considerable editing is still needed, including filling in some important gaps. [ WikiProject Trains/Assessment ]

--GoDot 17:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Railroad History or Small Town Chat?
I would suggest removing all references from Bill Speidel to actual railroad matters. He is not a railroad historian, but more of a folksy storyteller, and less than accurate than the repeated Paul Dorpat references. Where Speidel found his railroad information is beyond me, I presume he was repeating newspaper clippings and rumors. Robert C. Nesbitt's dissertation and book on the life of Judge Burke are likely to be far more accurate sources of information on the Lake Shore, as well as Albro Martin's biography of Hill, the Hidy (et al) history of the Great Northern, the Renz history of the Northern Pacific, and the Hidy original draft of the Great Northern, which is available at the University of Washington Libraries. Again, the Speidel references, while entertaining, have little or no value as an accurate history of this small Northwest road. [JP3]

Wallula
Wallula is a ghost town, also known as Ainsworth for OR&N/NP's John C. Ainsworth in what would be very close to today's Kennewick. Why it appears in this article is beyond me. The SLSE had no interaction with Wallula _or_ Walla Walla and its inclusion here is very strange, indeed. [JP3]

The article states "Walla Wallu, an outpost on the Columbia River near the Tri-Cities." I've never heard of "Walla Wallu," and I've lived in Washington most of my life. I have heard of "Wallula" and "Walla Walla". The first is a small town on the Columbia River and near the Tri-Cities. The second is a larger, but not on the Columbia River and a bit further away from the Tri-Cities.

I don't want to take the initiative to edit the main article in case "Walla Wallu" was or is an actual place and was the correct reference for the article. I would appreciate it if someone with more knowledge in the area (historically, topically, or geographically) could provide the correction.

Thanks. [--67.185.46.253 23:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)]


 * I bet "Wallula" is meant, but can't vouch for that, since I didn't write it. --Lukobe 01:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Wallula is now a junction of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and the Palouse River & Coulee City Railroad owned by Watco Railroads. As you all may know, BNSF merged, BN bought out NP that bought out, etc. Wallula "is a census-designated place [CDP] located in Walla Walla County, Washington. As of the 2000 census, the CDP had a total population of 197" (Wallula article). "PCC map", "Palouse River & Coulee City Railroad (PCC)" "Ex-NP 'CW' branch closure", "TrainBoard.com > Fallen Flags > Northern Pacific Railroad", page 5 of 8. Dan, SDP45 (20:04 25 January 2006), post 77. "Wallula, WA". Villard had the line at Wallula and west built by the NP. (Speidel, p. 190.)

Accuracy is a goal "[W]ith the purpose of creating a rail connection to North Dakota via Wallula" has a Citation needed. So far, references (refs) say its avowed purpose was boostering a transcontinental line east while its real purpose was building a feeder line in order to get bought out by one of the transcontinentals. (Speidel, p.196, 200)

--GoDot 05:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

RAILWAY
Is the proper noun "Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway" or "Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad"? Railroad:
 * "HistoryLink Essay: Railroad Development in the Seattle / Puget Sound". Retrieved 21 April 2006.

This is the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway, see the reference from J.W. Kendrick to Northern Pacific's President Adams. Do not use newspapers as creditable sources for proper corporate names. Try Poor's Manual or articles of incorporation. [JP3]

Railway:
 * Dorpat, Paul (22 December 2002). "Riding on Memories", "The Seattle Times: Pacific." Retrieved 21 April 2006.  One of the last steam locomotives to run along the Seattle Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad right-of-way heads toward North Bend on June 29, 1957. Part of a gas holder at the old Lake Union Gas Works can be seen behind it.
 * "SDOT - Burke- Gilman Trail - Maps and Mileage Info". Retrieved 21 April 2006.  Same as
 * Dorpat, Paul (4 July 2004). "Patriots on Parade", "The Seattle Times: Pacific Northwest: Now and Then." Retrieved 21 April 2006.  Hamilton, Larry, curator. "Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway's Engine No. 2, the D.H. Gilman."

More of the more credible sites say "Railroad." Does anyone have credible refs, or is it as shown?

--GoDot 12:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

says Railway, as does this stock certificate. The latter makes it very clear, so I'm moving it. --SPUI (T - C) 17:56, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The stock certificate could be a way cool illustration (plus with 2 scenes, no less). Would the owner of this (SLS&E) stock certificate allow it to GNU use?  I believe attribution could be attached to an image used.  Or is copyright expired because it was first published before the early 1900s?  (See "To attain GA class," above.)


 * Ken Foshey | Last modified: 08/26/03.

Search found "no records returned" for "Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern," "Seattle Lake Shore and Eastern," "Seattle" found:


 * 1. RAILROAD: Seattle & International Railway (6/30/1896)
 * 2. LINE_OF_RD: Seattle to Sumas, Washington.
 * 3. ORIGIN: Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway
 * 4. CURRENT: Northern Pacific Railway
 * 5. SUCCESSORS: (1901) Northern Pacific Railway [so this is obsolete, not listing the BN and BN-SF]
 * 6. TEXT: P1900 Seattle to Sumas, Washington, 126.30 miles. Woodenville to Sallal Prairie, Washington, 38.45 miles. Ballard Junction to Ballard, 1.10 miles. Bothell to Logging Camp, 3.40 miles. Chartered, June 30, 1898, to take over property and franchises of the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway, West of the Cascade Mountains. See Poor's 1899P653. This railroad is owned by the Northern Pacific Railway, but operated independently. The Canadian Pacific Railway has a traffic agreement with this Company. P1901 Northern Pacific Railway Acquired control 2/1898. Branches: Sallal: Woodenville Junction to Sallal Prairie, Washington. Ballard: Ballard Junction to Ballard, Washington. Leased: Monte Cristo Railway: Snohomish to Everett, Washington. Absorbed by Northern Pacific Railway 4/1/1901. PMRL2

What is "Poor's 1899P653", P1901, PMRL2? Can source references be found?

NOTE: Poor's is Poor's Manual, the publication of Henry Varnum Poor covering steam railroad's statistics for stock brokers. This is the Poor's in today's Standard and Poor's 500, etc. Poor's 1899 is the 1899 edition of Poor's Manual, P653 is the page number the data for the Northern Pacific system was listed upon. [JP3]


 * url =http://www.earlpleasants.com/search_1.asp
 * title =Results for Submit Query "Seattle"
 * work =1/24 of results from Railroad History Database


 * 1. RAILROAD: Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway
 * 2. LINE_OF_RD: Seattle to Sumas, Washington.


 * url =http://www.earlpleasants.com/search_2.asp
 * title =Results for Submit Query "Lake Shore"
 * work =26/27 of results from Railroad History Database

A possible lead is querying about the Seattle & Eastern Construction Company, though that did not appear in the query "Seattle," though that was search_1.asp.

--GoDot 03:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Style
Summary: +, cite, so cl, rephrased; see Talk. Expansion: Added verified relevant text and added citations, so cleaned up and rephrased as needed, per Manual of Style (WP:MoS). Existing writing was retained as much as could. Summary per Edit summary legend. See also Talk:Seattle, Citing sources.

WP:MoS recommends year need not be linked unless particularly relevant (MoS (dates and numbers)).
 * WP suggests avoid overlinking dates. Linking the recent decades years (post-1914 or so) may not be sufficiently relevant.  Only make links that are relevant to the context, WP:CONTEXT

"It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. [...] It's not always an easy call. [...] This [...] is in dynamic tension with the general rule to build the web." --GoDot 12:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Text in the article without citations disagrees with that of text with citations. WP:MoS says that discrepancies among sources should be duly reported. Provision of citations could help resolve, or at least clarify where data is simply inconclusive. The most significant areas are noted.

--GoDot 05:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * noted where needed to distinguish. --GoDot 12:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Summary: +, gm, cl wrt cit, sp cit Speidel; see Talk:  Explication:  Add text, fix grammar, cleanup text in order to correspond to sources, fix spelling of citation for Speidel. I did the citations here being corrected : )`

Preserving the existing writing as much as can, I did not introduce Burke and Gilman until the recent history of the SLS&E line east.

William Speidel corrected to match ISBN and catalog; further, for a professional, that form should be used. I had gotten the "Bill Speidel" from somewhere else. Thanks for making the internal link, I hadn't thought to look. The Bill Speidel article might add assessment or reviews by his historian peers. Even though written for a general audience, his work has thorough bibliographies that include extensive primary sources.

"And ever since, every suburb around the perimeter of the city has been advertised as only 'twenty scenic minutes away from downtown.' "  The indented text is explicitly attributed to Speidel at the outset, noted , footnoted at the conclusion, and explained in Talk post 05:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC) as "[t]he material is all from Speidel". Alternatively, "" could have been used, but that merely indents both margins. Would that help enough?

"In the midst of maneuvering among himself," is rather more awkward than stating that the "maneuvering was among A, B, and C". When names are listed, I think the sentence is more readable when all are in some peer form (unless to some specific purpose), as the "the United Kingdom and France", rather than "the U.K. and France". Cf. WP:MoS # Acronyms and abbreviations, WP:MoS (abbreviations).

Northwest Railway Museum. & command set syntax. (Ed. --GoDot 08:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC))

--GoDot 12:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Accurate content, sufficiently significant content
"Northern Pacific Railway's selection of Seattle's southern rival" is less accurate as well as a little awkward. The NP was an inanimate corporate entity. It didn't actually do--the board of directors, CEO, (and actually, its people) did. In those days of robber barons, Henry Villard, tycoon of the NP, made the selection (Northern Pacific Railway). That the rivalry was intense, if not fierce or passionate, is of greater importance than lateral location (Speidel, pp.180–188).

Sallal Prairie article DNE. So far, on-line searching suggests it and Rattlesnake Prairie are forgotten ghosts.

The reference to "Local historian William Speidel (1967) observed that," is not a quote and has been reworded from paragraphs on several pages. The material is all from Speidel, so he is credited explicitly.

"New York By and By" for "New York Alki" is more correct than "New York Bye and Bye"; "Bye" is such as in "good bye" a derivation from "God be wy you" or "god buy' ye". As such, the inference of "ye" (you) is not present in "Alki" [American Heritage DIctionary, 4th ed., Houghton Mifflin, 2004.].

"The company was placed in receivership" changed to SLS&E to differentiate from GN, the railroad of the preceeding sentence.

"The eastern Washington line became the Spokane & Seattle Railway, which was puchased by the NP in two parts."Citation needed Where did this come from? Where is how Burke, Gilman, & co. came to build, buy, or run this eastern Washington line? How was this part of the SLS&E? The citations and refs so far say the SLS&E eastward ended a little before North Bend.

The Renz book speaks of the final purchase of the S&S (SLS&E) on page 197. The 2 halves were to build towards each other, connecting somewhere in the middle. The large map in the Reffner book shows the proposed lines. It also shows the branch to North Bend being just that, a branch. The cross state line would start in the Everett area and generally follow Stevens Pass to Wenatchee, going up through Waterville and across the Grand Coulee at Coulee City, then across the Big Bend to Davenport then Spokane. See the map in Kurt Armbruster's book, The Orphan Road, WSU Press, 1999, page 133. --SDP45 10:34, 27 Novembe 2006 (PT)

It has also been reported that the Great Northern used the SLS&E bridge over the Spokane River while the GN was building its own during its transcontinental building in 1893. The source for this information is out there, but I have not located it.
 * Yahoo! That's good enough for now.  This is not a hotly controversial atticle, and maybe a reader will have more clues to identifying source references.  Copied your text to article.
 * Pasting at the top of the article might attract copyeditor help.
 * Summary: +ft, +heads, cl cit, +cite web; see Talk.  Expansion:  Add short full text (ft) copied from Talk, add section headings, cleanup citations (mine ; )` for easier reading by casual editors, add cite web template; see Discussion.  --GoDot 08:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Louis Tuck Renz references the name changes from SLS&E to the companies the NP purchased in his book, listed below.

As the beginning of this article states, the SLS&E was planned to be a larger railroad than it ultimately became. Construction was started in 2 parts, with the eastern Washington section started in Spokane and headed west. The map in Ruffner's "Report on Washington Territory" shows the proposed line going from Davenport to Coulee City, up the Grand Coulee to Waterville then on to Wenatchee, then along the Wenatchee River up over part of Stevens Pass before cutting over towards the Everett area.

The steam locomootive "A M Cannon," SLS&E number 11, is named after a prominent Spokane resident. Mr. Cannon was very instrumental in the building of the SLS&E in the Spokane area. Book referencing more of Mr. Cannon's involvement, "History of the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and Washington, 1889." I have not gotten a chance to see this book to verify more of this.
 * "[I]s named after": might any SLS&E rolling stock still exist anywhere?  For now, text copied to article, "was named after".  --GoDot 08:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

--SDP45 10:34, 16 June 2006 (PDT)

Additional sources for references
== Further Reading ==
 * Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper, 1885-1896. [On-line archive 1986-1999 only, current database 2000-present; The Seattle Times back to 1990 only, checked 21 April 2006.] Author, date, article title would be useful for any expansion or verification.
 * "Ex-NP 'CW' branch closure", "TrainBoard.com > Fallen Flags > Northern Pacific Railroad", page 3 of 8. Bibliography re. CW and SLS&E, posts January 5th, 2006, 01:53 AM; January 5th, 2006, 02:02 AM; and January 6th, 2006, 04:09 AM.
 * Lewty, Peter J. (1995). Across the Columbia Plain. Washington State University Press. "A chapter details the building of the CW and the SLSE in the 'Big Bend' country" [Dan, SDP45; post "January 19th, 2006, 02:47 AM"].
 * Renz, Louis Tuck (1980). The History of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Fairfield, Wash: Ye Galleon Press. Recommended or referenced by several sources.

--GoDot 05:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

More on accurate, sufficiently significant
Date the SLS&E was taken or absorbed or whatever by the NP is inconsistent among sources, so the three discrepancies are stated, per WP:NPOV. --GoDot 12:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Identified Winsor Spur
Identified the location of the Winsor spur, removing the Windsor Hills Park in Renton suggestion. The referenced Anderson map shows many towns and railroads that were never built, so Winsor being on it is not definitive as to location (a check on state records of plats is needed) or whether it was the same place (there may have been other Winsors). But a spur built before development would have suited a new town's promoters, and with the line having crossed to the south side of the Sammamish about a mile downstream of Bothell at Wayne (presumably so it could take the easier western side of the Sammamish valley to Redmond), the SLS&E mainline station for Bothell was actually on the wrong side of the river, so a spur along the northern bank in the area shown on the map would make sense regardless of the success of Winsor. AP61 16:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Although the Winsor plat is south of the river and the main rail line, the Anderson map showing Winsor north of the river may still be correct, because there seems to have been a Winsor on each side of the river (even though it was much wider then, before the Lake Washington Ship Canal lowered the water level). The plat of Bothell north of the river excludes some land marked as "Windsor", which is consistent with detail from Judge Winsor given in  pg 351. Some other maps show Winsor on the rail line (and therefore south of the river), and it is listed as a station on the line in .Naming of short branches by their origin is not unusual (eg the Crocker Branch going to Douty in ). AP61 (talk) 22:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Still no reasonable information here to confirm or deny the line existed or that it was attributed to the SLS&E. The Plot maps from the Northern Pacific, Keith to McMurray do not include a line connected at Bothell. They do show on the Woodinville to Black River the original alignment of the belt line. Additionally The Tanner Branch plot map is listed here for reference. Note: Watch out these are big files. (Natfoot footnat (talk) 00:23, 11 March 2021 (UTC))

Fixed Gilman text and trails text
1) Reduced the name in the caption of the Snoqualmie Railway Station picture from "Gilman now Snoqualmie" to just "Snoqualmie" - the sign on the building in the picture already says Snoqualmie, and Gilman was the original name for Issaquah not Snoqualmie [as mentioned in the Issquah Wikipedia article and here in relation to the Gilman coal mines, and eg http://www.metrokc.gov/exec/bred/hpp/landmarkDesignations.htm "Issaquah Depot, originally known as Gilman Station"], and elsewhere changed from "Gilman now Snoqualmie" to "Gilman now Issaquah". 2) Reduced the related trail details to being merely that the Burke-Gilman Trail is part of the King County Regional Trail system, rather than correcting the inference that an old SLS&E line became the Snoqualmie Valley Trail, where in fact GN built south from Monroe through Duvall to Tolt (now Carnation) [1910 Railroad Commission map at http://www.secstate.wa.gov/history/maps_view.aspx?m=31&i=AR_RailroadCommission1910.djvu] and the CM&StP built north from Cedar Rapids to Tolt then bought and operated the GN line [1928 Public Works map at http://www.secstate.wa.gov/history/maps_view.aspx?m=21&i=SL_railroadmapWA_1928.djvu] [and article at http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=153]. And did not add that a long stretch of the non-rail Tolt Pipeline Trail is needed to get to Duvall from the Burke-Gilman trail [map at http://www.metrokc.gov/parks/documents/rtmap.pdf] - all that detail seems irrelevant in an SLS&E entry. AP61 16:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Corrected location of Sallal Prairie
1) Changed location of Sallal Prairie from "some miles before North Bend" to "just past North Bend" - USGS topographic maps [eg SNOQUALMIE PASS [WA] 1:100000 1973 at http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=47.45088&lon=-121.7569&s=200&size=m&u=4&datum=nad27&layer=DRG100] show Sallal Prairie as the flat area east of North Bend opposite the gap between Rattlesnake Mt and Mt Washington, with BN (ex SLS&E) track reaching it (while CMStP&P track crosses it going from Snoqualmie to the mainline at Cedar Falls), and railroad maps [such as the 1910 Railroad Commission map at http://www.secstate.wa.gov/history/maps_view.aspx?m=31&i=AR_RailroadCommission1910.djvu] show Sallal beyond North Bend. 2) Corrected relationship with Rattlesnake Praire, which although not named on the maps is plausibly put by  http://www.topozone.com in the flat area south of Rattlesnake Lake in the Cedar River valley south of Sallal Prairie, and http://www.cedarriver.org/watershed/tribal.shtml refers to "the Cedar River Pack Trail, which extended from Yakima Pass west along the north bank of the Cedar River to Rattlesnake Prairie" without mentioning going north into the Snoqualmie Valley. AP61 16:53, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Extension to Rattlesnake Prairie
This needs some further primary offline research that I do not have time for at the moment.

The line to Rattlesnake Prairie appears to have been only a logging railway, with SLS&E track ending at Sallal Prairie (or Sallal Station, or just Sallal), on the northern side of the Snoqualmie South Fork, about four miles past North Bend. Rattlesnake Prairie is three miles to the south, further around Rattlesnake Mountain, in the Cedar River valley alongside Rattlesnake Lake, where the town of Moncton developed and was later renamed Cedar Falls (although the falls themselves are a couple of miles upriver).

The first line between the two areas was on a direct but rather steep route, supporting construction and operation of a dam and power station on the Cedar, but that Seattle Municipal Railway would not have been a common carrier and is rarely shown on maps, with no details found online beyond some Seattle municipal survey maps (eg a 1912 index map at http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~archives/maps/medium/2.jpg).

The longest lived was the MILW Everett Branch north from the mainline at Cedar Falls, on an easier, more roundabout grade (MILW referring to the railroad operating variously as the Chicago Milwaukee and St Paul, Chicago Milwaukee and Puget Sound, Chicago Milwaukee St Paul and Pacific, and The Milwaukee Road).

But there was a third line, implied to be Northern Pacific on a special 1915 USGS map that focused on the NP mainline over Stampede Pass (last page in http://onlinepubs.er.usgs.gov/djvu/B/bull_611.djvu), by which time the SLS&E had been absorbed into the NP. That third line ran south of Boxley Creek, largely paralleled by the MILW line north of the creek, both shown on the 1913 USGS Cedar Lake topographic map (http://content.wsulibs.wsu.edu/sid/bin/show.plx?client=maps&image=topo031.sid). But Washington State Railroad Commission maps either do not show that third line at all (1910, http://www.secstate.wa.gov/history/maps_view.aspx?m=31&i=AR_RailroadCommission1910.djvu) or have it as an unnamed logging line (1917, http://134.121.161.104/sid/maps/uw012.sid via http://content.wsulibs.wsu.edu/cgi-bin/advsearch.exe), and a detailed 1912 Seattle City survey at the Cedar Rapids end shows it as the Weeks Logging Railway with no permanent right of way (http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~archives/maps/medium/282.jpg).

The line crossed Boxley Creek twice, with the downstream bridge in the middle of the mill town of Edgewick (see the 1913 USGS map), but is not mentioned in detailed accounts of the 1918 Boxley Burst (collected at http://www.scn.org/cedar_butte/bb-main.html) which destroyed Edgewick, so it was by then no longer in use or at least unimportant.

It might nonetheless have been built south by NP to connect to the MILW mainline (which came through in 1907) during the few years before the MILW itself built north (there seems no sense in NP building later and duplicating the MILW line which they could have connected to more easily where the lines crossed near Sallal Prairie or further west near Snoqualmie Falls, but it would be entirely sensible for the MILW to duplicate that stretch of NP as the MILW built north into the lower Snoqualmie valley and on to Everett).

Prior to the MILW mainline (which ran down from Snoqualmie Pass, starting high up the steep southern side of the valley and coming gradually down to valley floor level as it rounded Mt Washington into the Cedar River valley below Cedar Falls), there would have been no commercial reason for such an extension other than logging, but that may still have been done by an NP subsidiary (similar to what happened a little further south, where the Green River and Northern ran from the NP mainline at Kanasket north to Kerriston for logging prior to the MILW, but was then taken over by the NP and provided a connection to the MILW at Barneston in the middle of the GR&N line).

AP61 21:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is the Green River Branch out of Kanaskat going north. From page 22 and page 23 it states the the railroad was never built. Additionally Here is the Tanner Branch for Reference. I have spent some time mapping this on OSM so that you can better see the right of way. By some accounts the line was to continue to Echo lake by a logging company to bring another railroad to the Snoqualmie valley. By reports the line is graded as far as Echo Lake but has not been confirmed. In addition to the this Northern Pacific Line there was lots of Logging Railroads happening in this area. You can search the Seattle Municipal Archive for logging railroads with the cedar river watershed. Examp (Natfoot footnat (talk) 00:48, 11 March 2021 (UTC))

Broken citation
The citation for "Spokane to Davenport" seems to be broken. - Jmabel | Talk 02:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Fixed, and cleaned up citation detail AP61 07:31, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Commons
As far as I can see, all of the images used here would be eligible for the Commons, if someone feels like copying them over. - Jmabel | Talk 02:12, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Large, undigested document
Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway appears to be an undigested document. Assuming that it is accurately transcribed, it should probably be moved to Wikisource. If its content is important to this article, it should be paraphrased; I suspect that the resulting text here will be much shorter. - Jmabel | Talk 02:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Idiosyncratic footnoting style
Also, someone might want to fix the idiosyncratic footnoting style, no doubt a vestige of GoDot's capable but unorthodox approach. - Jmabel | Talk 02:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Connection to CPR
I popped by here looking for information on the rail connection between Seattle and the CPR and as to which company it was that built the original Mission rail bridge over the Fraser; as per my change to the lede, the transcontinental CPR line was not at teh Canadian side of the Sumas border, but six miles north of it on the farther side of the Fraser River. A bridge was built in 1891 - I'd thought by an American company but it seems from the context here, making no mention of the line running north of Sumas, that it was a CPR spur line and so it would seem the CPR built the bridge. Does anyone here know the details? Great Northern ran a line via Surrey into Vancouver eventually, and I think it was their money who built the first rail bridge at/near New Westminster, though I don't think that's the same as teh current span there, which dates to 1904. The current bridge at Mission was built in 1909, by the CPR. There definitely was a prior bridge and via it a rail connection from Mission to Sumas, but I suspect it may have been damaged by the Great Fraser Flood of 1894........20:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
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