Hopefully avoiding the endless thread below on whether Reading 2100 will make it up the hill or not, I'm wondering when the last passenger trains ran there for the Milwaukee Road? What sort of motive power was used? I suspect it was long, long ago. Wasn't this the place where they used some 2-6-6-2 articulateds on the log trains, later replaced with F7s with special low gearing?

The Washington State Historical Society has a web page with a good summary of the history of the line.

http://www.washingtonhistory.org/wshs/c ... 499-a3.htm

The book Rails to Paradise has just been published and goes into the history of the line in greater detail.

http://www.railstoparadise.com

I'll second the reccomendation of "Rails to Paradise". Russ and Clark have literally been researching that book for years. It's huge, and contains lots of excellent detail. If you're interesting in the line's history, it's a great place to start.

(Note that it primarily concentrates on the early history of the line, up to 1919)

That link is a good synopsis. Sounds like regular passenger service ended in 1932. Does anyone know if the Milwaukee operated other passenger excursions on the line after that?