Rails To Paradise

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The Tacoma Eastern Railroad was world famous for its ability to bring long trains of one-log carloads night and day out of the woods of Kapowsin, Mineral and Morton. However, it was also the means by which a hundred thousand tourists arrived at the gateway of Mount Rainier National Park. The summer of 2005 marks the 100th Anniversary of the Train to the Mountain. The passenger excursion-service was provided for by the Tacoma Eastern Railroad and brought thousands of tourists’ worldwide to see the attractions and wonders of the newly established Mount Rainier National Park. Though trains arrived at their park terminus in 1904, they were too late to make an appreciable impact on tourist activities. This story, taken from excerpts of the book, Rails to Paradise, highlights the events leading up to, and the subsequent operation of, the Train to the Mountain. This story begins with the contractors building the line into Ashford, the National Park terminus for the railway.

The Ashford Uprising
By June of 1904, the railroad graders were hard at work opening a roadbed into the terminus of Ashford, Washington, five miles from the gates of Mount Rainier National Park. A bustling construction camp filled with white canvas tents, corrals, and wagons was maintained in the Succotash valley, while the grading crews were laying rails on the National Park segment of the line between Park Junction and Ashford. The “cracker boys” who built the Tacoma Eastern were mostly of Japanese--not Chinese descent like those famous railroad graders who constructed the Central Pacific leg of the Transcontinental line in the 1860’s. Ironically, the grading contractor employed the Japanese men on a labor contract through Chinese labor pools known as tongs. Certain segments of the line were bid out separately to prevent one contractor from controlling too much of the work. The labor contractors paid each of the Japanese workers a flat fee of $1.50 per day regardless of experience. (Friday) Interestingly, these wages were only slightly better than what the Chinese were paid some forty years earlier to advance the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific across the continent. (Ambrose)

Despite the perpetually low wages, many Chinese who came to America to build railroads actually earned enough money to thrive. These journeymen railroad graders began purchasing small farms of their own, and worked seasonally for the salmon canning industry to supplement their income. As the Chinese emigrants began to work their way into American society, the tongs were compelled to dip into the burgeoning Japanese community to fill employment contracts.

Japanese immigration was unheard of prior to 1892; it was illegal by Empirical decree until 1885, and once it was legal, immigration could only be considered a trickle until 1900 when the influx of Japanese migrants began to surge. In 1890, there were only 125 people of Japanese descent living in Seattle; by 1900 that population was just shy of 3,000 and the vast majority of these were new arrivals. These recent arrivals were given the most menial tasks, for the lowest wages, to offset the demands of fewer skilled Chinese in the labor force. The railroad contractors stereotypically considered the Japanese laborers as less skilled, more prone to leisurely activities, apt to take more breaks throughout the day, less likely to work twelve hour days, and far less likely to be passive about workplace abuses by their managers than their Chinese counterparts. They would accept lower wages on contract and that mattered greatly in jobs that no one wanted. This inadvertently helped move the Chinese one rung up the socio-economic ladder.

Another force, seen with greater frequency on the job site was the steam shovel, which was changing the construction dynamic in the woods. By 1904 the steam shovel was becoming commonplace--blazing trails into the wilderness--and paying premium wages to the men who operated them. More mechanization meant less dependence upon menial, foreign laborers. (Friday) On the Tacoma Eastern, the steam donkey was the fire-breathing dragon most commonly seen in the woods. The steam donkey was a vertically mounted steam boiler perched on enormous wooden skids. Through the manipulation of massive pulleys and heavy wire-rope cables, steam donkeys could wrest trees from the ground. Once denuded, the donkeys could be employed to drag heavy steel buckets, rimmed with ripping teeth, across the ground to blaze a grade more efficiently through the uneven terrain and tree-choked wilderness.

The contractor responsible for much of the grading we see today along the Tacoma Eastern Railroad was William H. Remington. Remington had in his employ some 300 Japanese workers grading for him in 1904. Pierce County had recently enacted a poll tax of $2 a month for each worker of oriental descent for the privilege of working there. The new poll tax went into effect on the first of May and was first deducted from the men’s pay that June. Payday was Tuesday, June 21st. When the Japanese learned of the county payroll deduction, all hell broke loose.

The angry men immediately demanded their pay in full from the Paymaster. When he refused, the rabble demanded the Remington construction Foreman make-up the difference. All attempts at negotiation broke down quickly. Out-numbered, the Foreman and the Paymaster fled for the safety of the station car located at the end of track. Here the two men were held captive by an angry mob. No food or water was offered the two estranged men inside who anxiously awaited rescue. The men spent a sleepless night worried that they would be lynched, shot--or worse yet--roasted to death if the car was set ablaze.

The following morning, a representative of the Remington Construction Company, Sydney Plummer, alighted from the construction train accompanied by Sheriff McCulloch. When the Sheriff arrived, the striking laborers liberated their captives who stuck closely to the heels of the Sheriff’s boots until they could all safely leave. According to one account, Plummer was able to convince some of the men that the tax was legitimate, “One-half of the men employed went back to work, but the others, still disgruntled, struck for good, and returned to the city. The paymaster and foreman also left their positions and returned to Tacoma.” (Port Townsend Daily Leader, June 23, 1904) News of the Pierce County poll tax and the resulting Japanese uprising at Ashford, led several tong managers and cannery contractors to Tacoma to lure many of the migrant workers away from Pierce County and from railroad work—a doubly harsh blow for the Tacoma Eastern. (Friday)

Rumors and rumors of rumors
Capitalizing enormous expenditures such as the purchase of new locomotives; expanding locomotive machine shop capacity; and ordering track materials to construct 25 miles of new railroad requires a line of credit that no ordinary, locally managed, short-line railroad could manage without some additional monetary means. Though the associations between the Milwaukee Road and the Tacoma Eastern were not well investigated, the Tacoma Daily Ledger published a rumor that the flurry of construction spending by railway Vice President John Bagley was due in part to the fact that a large number of Tacoma Eastern shares had been sold to the Milwaukee Road. This strengthened the public association between the two roads and fueled rumors that the Milwaukee Road would attempt a transcontinental dash across the country to Puget Sound. In the minds of railroad investors, the rewards in purchasing Tacoma Eastern stock clearly outweighed the risks. This optimism can be seen clearly by the reporting of the Northwest financial monthly, the West Coast Trade, when they stated that the Tacoma Eastern “runs through a country so richly endowed by nature, in wealth splendid marketable timber, and in minerals, that its future prosperity and success is assured.” (WCT, January 1904)

Another rumor had the Tacoma Eastern building from Lewis County down to Yacolt to meet with the Northern Pacific and thus giving the Tacoma Eastern access to Vancouver and Portland. (TDL, February 25, 1905) Feeding the Portland rumor was the fact that the Tacoma Eastern had recently appointed Fred Walker, to the Superintendent’s position of the railroad. Walker had risen through the ranks of the Oregon, Washington Railway and Navigation Company. (French) A frenzy of rumors compelled an agitated John Bagley to set the record straight with the press when he stated very emphatically, “there was no truth in the rumors circulated to the effect that the company would run its line through to Portland.” (TDL, February 25, 1905)

During the fall of 1904, a grizzled forty-four-year old railroadman by the name of Harry C. French wrote to Superintendent Walker, that he was in need of a job and wondered if any positions were to be had at the Tacoma Eastern. Fred Walker remembered the veteran from when the two worked together on the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company in Wallula, Washington as far back as 1883, when Walker was a rookie telegraph operator. French had taught Walker how to be a damned good telegraph operator. Through French’s broad-based experience, he schooled the neophyte not only how to run an efficient depot, but conversely, how the train crews liked to be treated--a managerial skill that would aide Walker throughout his career.

A Boomer Settles Down
French was small and lean with wide-set steely eyes, thin hair, but a big wiry, walrus-like, mustache. He was born in near Sumner, Illinois in 1860. His mother died in labor. Unexpectedly, French’s father died when the lad was only seven. The orphan had gotten his start in railroading in 1873 at the age of thirteen in Missouri on the Hannibal and St. Joe Railroad as a messenger boy making $14 a month. From that point on the railroad was the only family for him. Within the year, French became a Telegrapher for the North Missouri Railway and later a Conductor on various railroads while hopscotching his way to the West Coast.

Superintendent Walker informed French that the Tacoma Eastern Railroad was not immediately hiring in any sought after journeyman positions, but assured French that if he accepted an entry-level brakeman’s position, that he would be conducting trains again in no time. French, who was discontented banging boxcars together in the Albina Yards of the Union Pacific east of Portland, eagerly accepted the work.

Ira Kistner
French had only been working with the Tacoma Eastern for about two weeks when on October 27, 1904, he was called out for a graveyard-shift run from Tacoma to the recently established Camp 3 of the Northern Coast Timber Company in the woods above Graham. The train left Bismarck at 7 that evening with H. W. Cooper conducting a trainload of empty flats with Charlie Davis at the throttle. The engine that night was the Tacoma Eastern number six; affectionately referred to by the crews as the ‘Pittsburgh Hog’. The train crew was served by Ira Kistner as Davis’ Fireman; and Frank Lamrey acting as Conductor Cooper’s rear Brakeman.

It was a dark, foggy night as the train crew arrived at the Highland Switch about a mile from the Northern Coast Timber company campsite, located about a mile south of Graham. Camp 3 was about three miles south of the mainline on rails laid by the logging company. The previous day, the mill company had sent six empty log flats to the camp for loading behind one of their geared locomotives. When the crew arrived, French and Lamrey cut off the train at the industry siding known as the “highland switch” and the Tacoma Eastern rod engine made its way backward up to the loading site, leaving Conductor Cooper behind to protect the mainline. The thick blanket of fog made the rails wet and the precarious six-percent grade made the climb to Camp 3 difficult for a road-switching rod-engine. It was just too dangerous for the crew to attempt taking six fully loaded cars down the camp spur back to the mainline, so the crew decided to take the drag in two cuts of three cars each. Upon making the brake test, French and Lamrey climbed aboard the cars to tend to the brake wheels and soon the train was on its way back to the awaiting Conductor below.

As the train slipped over the tracks and down the grade, Engineer Davis fought for control over the train. Seven miles an hour became fifteen; fifteen miles an hour became thirty while Davis opened the sanders and applied the air brakes. At thirty-five miles an hour, Davis attempted to throw the Johnson bar (reversing lever) fully back before yelling “For God’s sake, jump!” Davis immediately ‘joined the birds’ and flew out of the cab of the locomotive.

French, who was controlling the brake wheel on the engine’s tender, could hear the unmistakable sound of wheels dragging behind the train and realized that a train could slide across wet rails just as fast as it could roll. French leaped from the tender into the engine cab to find a wide-eyed Kistner all alone. With a horrified expression on his face, the young Fireman screamed, “He’s gone!”

French closed the throttle on the engine and slammed the Johnson bar back as far as it would go. He turned to tell the Fireman not to jump, but by then, Kistner too had disappeared into the fog. French estimated that by that time, the train was sliding at a rate of fifty miles an hour. From his thirty years of experience, French had seen what happens to a man who rides in the cab of a doomed engine. If the victims are not crushed by the collision, they are scalded to death in the ensuing steam cloud. French had long theorized that a man stood a better chance of riding out a runaway train by holding on from the outside. He figured he had a fifty-fifty chance of survival, while riding out on the running boards of the engine. Urgently, French tied the whistle cord down to the full open position, and carefully climbed out on to the running board from the Engineer’s door. Hand-over-hand, he made his way out to the sand dome and held on tight. French threw one leg over the boiler and, while straddling it, hooked his feet under the locomotive’s grab irons. The sounds emanating from the pea-soup haze must have been terrible and surreal as the train, chugged, skidded, whistled, clanged, rattled, banged, and bucked its way down the grade at an alarming fifty-five miles an hour while falling logs and fountains of sparks from the sliding flatcars flew in all directions.

The ever-growing commotion caused by the fast approaching train alerted Conductor Cooper to stay clear of the rails. If the train were going to crash, there was a good chance that it was going to crash right at the Highland switch where Cooper was waiting. Once the train rounded the switch, the mainline ascends a gentle grade and there the tired engine finally came to stop. Steam issued into the fog from just about every crevice, stay-bolt, and rivet not only from the old Pittsburgh Hog, but from the glowing hot journal boxes and flatted wheels of the log cars.

In his biography, Railroadman, French recalls his inspection of engine #6, after climbing down from his precarious perch.
Everything that was loose had shaken off: the lid of the sand dome that I had clung to, the markers, the lids off the journal boxes; the steam packing had blown out from around the pistons. There was enough power left, however, to back the cars to the switch we had just passed. All the logs had fallen off the rear car, most of them off the forward cars.
Once in the clear, French relayed the harrowing experience to Conductor Cooper. Lamrey was left at the switch to act as a flagman as Cooper and French began to walk the grade in search of Davis and Kistner.

About a mile up the line, Engineer Davis came hobbling out of the fog with a badly sprained ankle. The two men gave Davis a kerosene lantern and inquired to the whereabouts of Kistner but the engineer had not seen him. The Conductor and Brakeman continued their journey another half-mile before finding the body of Kistner along side of the tracks with his head planted between two ties. Kistner apparently died instantaneously from a crushing blow to the head, when he either fell or leaped from the train. The midnight fog was so thick that Davis certainly had hobbled within a few feet of his own Fireman while making his way down the hillside.

French walked back to Camp 3 to awaken the loggers while Cooper stayed with Kistner’s body. News of Kistner’s death was relayed to Pierce County Coroner C. C. Mellinger via the mill’s telephone. Mellinger requested that the body be brought to Tacoma for examination immediately. The loggers provided a litter and carried Kistner’s remains back to the caboose. The traincrew took their fallen comrade back to Tacoma arriving at 3 a.m. Ira Kistner was a 26-year-old local boy from Spanaway, who had just married his sweetheart, Dora, just five months earlier. Four months after the accident, the widow Kistner bore a son whom she named Earl.

An investigation into Kistner’s death ensued immediately. The following morning, the problem seemed plainly obvious to French. The tracks, laid by the loggers, had never been surveyed by a transit, “A daylight survey of this piece of track left the impression that the builders had just parted the stumps and laid the rails.” No one on the traincrew, with the exception of Kistner, had seen the precarious nature of the rails in the daylight. Court records confirm French’s observations.
The spur running out through the forest has very heavy grades…of about six per cent [sic]…the ties were laid upon the bare ground and over swampy places without any ballast so that the when trains were run over the same the track sank down at places making the track uneven, and the track was crooked, mis-jointed and unsafe in every respect for the operations of trains over the same; that the rails of the said spur were small “T” rails of about forty pounds weight per yard…

According to the papers, the train crew was exonerated of any wrongdoing and the Tacoma Daily Ledger heralded French as a hero. This led to an instant promotion for French and, with his many years of experience, increasing responsibilities with the Tacoma Eastern. The fact that Davis is listed in the 1904 Polk Directory as a Fireman would suggest that Davis had not held the post of engineer for long before the ensuing runaway occurred. Court records confirm this finding as Dora Kistner accused the Tacoma Eastern of all sorts of negligence. Interestingly, the Tacoma Eastern did not deny many of the charges brought against them; rather the railroad, through its lawyers, contended that if Kistner had stuck to his post (as French had) that he would have survived the accident, “in defiance to all rules and contrary to the dictates of good sense negligently and recklessly jumped from the said engine.” Elmer Hayden, council for the railroad, also argued that the job of a railroad Fireman was fraught with danger and that by accepting employment, Kistner accepted all such hazards and dangers associated with his job.

Dora Kistner sued for $20,000 in damages to herself and maintenance for her infant son. Mrs. Kistner settled for $1,000, which was still enough for a young mother to purchase a modest home. (Kistner vs TERR) It was pathetic cases such as Dora Kistner’s that pointed out the glaring need to State lawmakers for the formation of a regulatory body like the often-maligned Railroad Commission, despite the best efforts of the railroad lobby to stop the bureaucratic legislation. (Brazier)

The Railroad’s influence to Mt. Rainier National Park
With the railroad’s establishment of a terminus at Ashford, the dream of providing daily routine passenger service to one of the most scenic recreation areas in the world was quickly realized. With this newfound ease of transportation came a glut of tourism and hype never seen before or since. National Park Service officials were stymied by a new phenomenon in park recreation, previously unknown but, routinely referred to as the ‘day visitor’. Mount Rainier historian, Theodore Catton explains:
The day visitor first appeared in Mount Rainier National Park in the summer of 1904, following the completion of the Tacoma and Eastern Railroad to Ashford, and the simultaneous inauguration of a connecting stage service over the remaining thirteen miles to Longmire Springs. These transportation improvements made it barely feasible for tourists to travel from Tacoma to Mount Rainier and back in one day.

On To Ashford
The town of Ashford, nestled snuggly in the Succotash valley, was named for settler Walter Ashford who put down roots in the area in 1888. Ashford may have thought that he was improving his own land claim when he realized that he was squatting on Northern Pacific property, which he was then compelled to purchase. Walter Ashford platted the town in anticipation of the arrival of Tacoma Eastern railroad, in 1904. (Reese; Engle)

In 1905 three national hiking and outdoors clubs, the Mazama, the Sierras and the Appalachians, combined for one massive assault on the summit of Mt. Rainier. This was exactly the type of exposure that Bagley and the brass of the railroad were hoping for. The media hype reached epidemic proportions once the Park terminal had been established at Ashford. The Tacoma Daily News stated that no other railroad on earth passed through a more scenic landscape than that of the Paradise Valley Route of the Tacoma Eastern. As the mountain climbing event approached on the immediate horizon, it became evident that this undertaking was going to be much more involved than just running a special passenger train or two. Certainly some of the railroad employees underestimated the scope of the climb and the logistics necessary to assist the climbing clubs in accomplishing their goal. With the corresponding stress related to running a railroad terminus and the knowledge that the world’s largest mountaineering expedition to date was to pass through Ashford, the Tacoma Eastern Railroad’s first station agent, at the remote mountain village, snapped. He was shipped off to Western State Hospital for an examination and was never heard from again. (French)

It was on or near the 8th of July, 1905, when Conductor French climbed down from his caboose after another successful shift of bringing logs down the gulch to Tacoma, only to find a notice pinned to the company bulletin board inside the Tacoma depot stating that he was to report to Vice-President Bagley’s office “At Once.” French, perceiving that he was to be called out upon the carpet for some misdeed, said he reviewed the sins upon his heart before entering the General Manager’s office. French was ushered in—no waiting.
I faced President Bagley across the big desk.
“We're in a jam at Ashford, Harry. The agent is in the bug house. Most of the freight for these three thousand people has been shipped to Ashford. Their special trains will roll in there next week. I'll send you up there if you'll take it. Walker tells me that you're the only man he'd like put in charge.”

"I'll take it on one condition."

"Name it."

"I've got a boy about sixteen years old. I want him as my assistant. He'll do what I tell him. I want my two brakemen on the day the special trains roll in for the same reason. After that day you can have the brakemen back."

Bagley nodded. "Fix it that way..."

French preferred to ride the trains than to be handcuffed to a desk all day, listening to the incessant chatter of telegraph dots and dashes even though he could decipher them as easily as the English language. French knew that he could not handle the task Bagley laid out before him without help. His son, Chauncey “Chat” French, was hired especially by the railroad as the Assistant Station Agent. Chat’s main responsibility would be the handling and storage of several tons of mountain climbing gear that arrived in advance of the climbing parties. When Chat arrived at the Ashford depot, he found the freight room filled to overflowing with luggage, grips, gear, knapsacks, and duffels that spilled out into the main waiting room with more being sent to Ashford on every regularly scheduled train. Chat had the daunting task of sorting out which parcels were to be sent to Longmire’s Lodge and which should go to storage. Meanwhile, his father sent an urgent appeal to every hack and driver in the vicinity to portage the freight immediately from Ashford to Longmire Springs; a bone-rattling ride of about 12 miles—one way.

French took extraordinary strides to accommodate the needs of the climbers. First he rented out an unfinished dance hall a few blocks from the depot for storage and changing space. Chat was placed in charge of the makeshift storage building and partitioned the space into dressing rooms by hanging tent canvas and bed sheets. French also realized that the comforts afforded by Ashford and Longmire Springs would be totally overwhelmed by the passenger specials carrying large numbers of guests. French had the foresight to request that a dining car be spotted next to the depot to provide additional meal amenities to the passengers.

One week after accepting the new job assignment, ready or not, the trains began rolling into French’s depot with approximately 250 people on board each. The first of the special trains arrived Tacoma very early in the morning with 150 bleary-eyed climbers of the Mt. Mazama hiking club from Portland. These visitors were whisked off in chartered trolley cars, waiting for them at the Northern Pacific’s Villard Station located near 17th and Jefferson, for a hearty breakfast. The Portland special (train number 150) was switched over to the Tacoma Eastern mainline at the head of bay, and the visitors were off for a fortnight’s adventure at Mount Rainier by 8:30 in the morning. The Tacoma Eastern Railroad’s regularly scheduled passenger train left thirty-minutes later with a contingent of hikers from Seattle and Tacoma.

Most of the dozen or more reporters who followed the expeditionary participants every step failed to mention the train journey to Ashford. One of the few who did write of the railway journey was Anne Shannon Monroe, who wrote for The World Today. In her article entitled, “Climbing Mount Tacoma,” Monroe stated, “The would be climbers met in Tacoma, Washington, where they took the train for Ashford, a three hours’ upland run, through the most magnificent forests of fir and cedar, and past rugged gorges, glacial streams, cascades of waterfalls.”

Another reporter, Harry H. Brown, who wrote for the Overland Monthly, stated:
In itself this railroad is one of the wonders of the region. If brakes were released at Ashford, where it ends, a train of cars would roll with ever increasing momentum to Tacoma, fifty five miles distant. That is, if it did not jump the tracks, and the chances are that it would, for in passing the Nisqually Canyon there are steep curves and daring engineering feats around precipices that makes one’s flesh creep.

Among those making the train trip that morning was retired General Hazard Stevens, the son of Washington’s first Territorial Governor Isaac I. Stevens. General Stevens was the first man to ever summit Mt. Rainier in 1870. There is little reason to believe that anyone had climbed the mountain prior to Steven’s early expedition. Amongst the tribes of the greater Puget Sound region, Mount Tahoma as it was referred to was revered as sacred, a place were mere mortal men should not trespass, lest they come in contact with the tamanous: the impish spirits that abide upon the great mountain, which gave them life. Theodore Winthrop, who wrote of his experiences with Pacific Indian culture in the early 1850’s said that only shamans dared enter into that spiritual kingdom. General Stevens had returned to Tacoma from his retirement home in Boston, Massachusetts, at the age of sixty-three, to become one of 112 people to summit the mountain on this momentous occasion. Other noteworthy people joining the two-week long adventure included Stephen T. Mather, who later became the Director of the National Parks Service; Author Claude E. Rusk; and Northwest photographer, Ashael Curtis. Also counted amongst the legion were a number of amateur climbers from Berkley and Stanford Universities, along with a bevy of coed companions. “Members of these mountain clubs tended to be well-educated, middle-class professionals,” at least that is how National Park Service historian, Theodore Catton described the group in demographic terms.

Meanwhile, French received the help he requested from his two Brakemen, one was dispatched to handle details at the depot, while the other assisted Chat at the storehouse.
Things moved like clockwork when the specials began rolling in. Baggage was delivered promptly in spite of the huge crowds for that tiny depot. Those who wanted to change clothes, and store their luggage, were directed to the former dance hall. Those who wanted a bite to eat, or a shot of Scotch, were turned over to the dining car.
At the storehouse, climbers would ask Chat to locate their duffel bag or store their luggage until they returned. Those who wished to change from their traveling clothes into climbing togs were offered the luxury of one of the many sheet-draped changing rooms. In his book Railroadman, Chat (Chauncy Del French) reported that in spite of the wait for gear and the long lines for changing spaces, that no one was short-tempered, considering the tiring travel day they had had. The two sleepless men worked fully a twenty-four hour day. Exhausted, Chat collapsed on a pile of packs in the dance hall while his father, Harry slept on a passenger bench amidst the overflow baggage at the depot.

The climb occupied the Sierra, the Mazama and the Appalchian mountaineering clubs for about three weeks. Gertrude Metcalfe, a contributor to Mazama magazine stated in the December issue of 1905, described the atmosphere on the mountain during the encampment as, “Peril by day and merriment by night.” Sixty-one climbers from the Sierra club summited the mountain and in the process broke the record for the largest party to ascend the peak in one day. (Catton)

The rigorous activity on the mountain provided a bit of a respite for French at the depot, but Chat was constantly kept busy filling patron requests for equipment with every pack train driver that came into town from Longmire Springs. Chat charged each climber a dollar for three weeks storage. Many of the climbers also provided the teenager with a tip for the use of the changing rooms. Because the idea of renting the hall had been Chat’s, his father allowed him to keep the profits. All totaled, Chat made a $1,000, for a month’s work. The chaos associated with the day of departure was not realized, as it had been when the clubs first arrived. French stated that the leg-weary climbers arrived at the Ashford depot in groups of 50 to 100 and their departures were staggered over several days. It did not take Harry French long before he begged Bagley to return him to train service. A month after the last climber left was all that French could take of his Station Agent job at the Ashford depot. (French) From these humble and tumultuous beginnings one hundred years ago came the Train to the Mountain, which served Pierce County and Mount Rainier National Park for another twenty years.