Trains Magazine

The White Cascade is a bone-chilling example of railroading against extreme elements. A snowstorm pounded the Pacific Northwest in February 1910, and Great Northern Superintendent James O'Neill gave the go-ahead to take the Seattle Express and a Fast Mail train into the Cascade Mountains. Within hours, the trains were trapped near Wellington, Washington. They remained trapped for a week while the railroad tried desperately to clear the tracks. On March 1, nearly 100 passengers and railroaders were killed in the deadliest US avalanche.

The facts by themselves are difficult to read. But author Krist breathes life into them through diaries and letters written by those on board, as well as through investigation documents and period newspapers. No quoted passages are created, and where the record disagrees, Krist relies on what he perceives to be the most reputable source.

The end product is a stunning piece of literary journalism. The reader can't help but be drawn into the unfolding drama, and the realization that so many of the individuals who are cited also perished, is sobering.

While the avalanche led the GN to build miles of concrete snow sheds and a new Cascade Tunnel in the 1929, its real legacy is that it was a symptom of the period in US technological evolution. We hax the drive to cross mountains and oceans in the name of business, but we didn't have the necessary technology to support such ventures as crossing the Cascades in a blizzard, or crossing the ocean in an “unsinkable” ship two short years later.

At $26, this book is likely to sell to a wide variety of readers. Better get your copy soon.

--Kathi Kube