WP track agreement with SP

[jwar]

DSchmitt.

Thank you for the great info. I searched the WP site and I guess I overlooked it.

I noticed in your Bio we live thirty miles apart. Could meet you for a cup of coffee if you wi***oo.

Again thanks for the info, take care...John

[DSchmitt]

From the Western Pacific Railroad Historical Society web site:

"UNCLE SAM TAKES OVER
On December 28, 1917, with the United States several months a beligerent in the European War, President Woodrow Wilson seized control of the nation's railroads. The United States Railroad Administration was set up by Congress, headed by William Gibbs McAdoo, Wilson's son-in-law. On July 1, 1918, McAdoo appointed William R. Scott, vice-president of Southern Pacific, to manage that system as well as the Santa Fe Coast Lines and Western Pacific.

It was not a happy time for WP, although the USRA added ten Mikado engines, Nos. 301-310, 60,000 pounds tractive effort, to the roster, and although the Feather River Route was carrying heavy trains of war freight and "doughboys." Several of the measures introduced by Scott were bitter pills to the Western Pacific officers. One was the "paired track" operation of S.P. and WP between Winnemucca and Wells, 182 miles, where the tracks were parallel. Another was folding up Western Pacific's ferry and barge service on San Francisco Bay, its passenger trains being diverted to the S.P. Mole and its San Francisco freight moving via Dumbarton cutoff.

But on August 31, 1919, Colonel Edward W. Mason, who had come to WP as a car accountant ten years before and served in France with the U. S. Army Railroad Corps, was appointed Federal Manager of the Western Pacific and the road again rejoiced in a family hand on the throttle. On March 1, 1920, when complete independence was achieved again with the return of the roads to private ownership, Mason became general manager, and later vice-president and general manager, a post he was to hold until his retirement on June 30, 1946.

Like most railroads the Western Pacific was in deplorable physical condition when the Government relinquished control. After a year's haggling it received almost $9 million in damages. Most of the money went to purchase control, on December 23, 1921, of the Sacramento Northern Railroad, a third-rail electric line between Sacramento and Chico.

With restored individuality came much friendlier, if no less competitive, relations with the big neighbor, Southern Pacific. The paired track arrangement originally begun by Scott was discovered to be a good idea and in the mutual interest after all. It was reinstated on March 7, 1924, and an agreement for joint rates and routes was signed by which WP was to bridge at least half of the S.P. traffic between Oregon and Ogden from Winnemucca to Chico on the Sacramento Northern."

[jwar]

What year was the mutual agreement made. I know back in 64 WP and SP had a mutual agreement if Donner or the Feather River canyon was blocked, tunnel fires, weather, either road could run it train on the other's route with a pilot.

Also in 64 SP ran a local into Oroville.