Pocatello Railroad History

While much of the world was shifting from the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era in 1902, the Oregon Short Line was full steam ahead with plans to increase the size of their industrial operation in Pocatello. The city was a key junction for traffic into the Northwest and the railroad wanted to keep the trains running smoothly.

Managing their growing fleet required heavy investment to repair, upgrade, and even build, locomotives. Not only that, but boxcars demanded constant repair and maintenance, bridge struts had to be prefabricated, railroad buildings needed wood milled, and hundreds of other jobs had to be done. The railroad did not have to look far for a solution. With the convergence of two lines in the Portneuf Valley and open land on their right of way, Pocatello was the perfect location for extensive railroad shops.

Not only was Pocatello geographically well situated, but economically the rural state was ideal. The average Idaho worker was still working in the fields and factory jobs paid much better than farming.

In January of 1902 the railroad announced that the Grace & Howard Company out of Chicago had won a contract for building new shops in Pocatello. However, the word “shops” does not really do the size of the project justice. The machine shop was to be 150 feet deep by 486 feet long! A transfer table in front of the shop, used to slide locomotives sideways to line-up with different bays, was even longer at 522 feet. Two Goliath buildings for the coach and boiler shops were placed next to each other, each measuring 180 by 160 feet. A paint shop was slated to be 188 by 105 feet and next to it the new lumber mill was to be 151 by 80 feet. The power house was minuscule in comparison at only 75 by 90 feet. Other buildings were too small to even bother mentioning, but were still substantial brick structures. Electric ducts, steam lines, and air lines interconnected the various shops to provide light, heat, and power.

Not only was the main machine shop to be long and wide, it was also designed with headroom to spare. The distance from the floor to the bottom of the roof rafters was nearly 40 feet. A gallery overlooking the rest of the shop increased the usable floor space by about a third. To move the massive pieces of iron (and even lift an entire locomotive when necessary!) a 100 ton crane and a 30 ton crane were built into the building. Over the machinery areas were two 10 ton cranes while the wheel carriage area had a 15 ton crane. More than a dozen lathes were to be installed. Of course the shop also had to be able to make completely new parts, so seventeen forges were included as well as a foundry.

Far from the dark and dreary interior we might imagine for a factory of the era, the buildings had large glass windows and skylights to fill the work areas with natural light and illuminate the work. Electrical lights glowed over dark corners and also allowed shifts to work efficiently late into the night or on stormy days.

A single large lavatory building was centrally placed to simplify plumbing needs for the shops. While the workers may not have enjoyed a five hundred yard walk to the toilette, at least it was not an outhouse like many had at home.

Construction took years and the railroad continually improved the shops with ever-changing designs as business needs shifted, new technology became available, and new methods of work were invented. At the outset, there was even a plan to put in a second roundhouse, but it was cut and the existing roundhouse expanded instead. Despite this endless shuffling of plans, the yard soon filled with lumbering locomotives, giant buildings for them to crawl into, and numerous tracks upon which to slither about. Men looked like mice scampering through the structures and over the behemoth locomotives as they went about their numerous trades. The turntable, transfer table, pusher engines, and cranes lifted, rotated, aligned, and shoved the machines into the gaping mouths of the brick and mortar caves.

While wages may have been low compared to similar work in Chicago or New York, in southeast Idaho the pay was substantial. Sure, the working environment was loud, the trains and power house belched choking coal smoke, and it was physically demanding and dangerous work, but it gave men a new way to learn a trade and support their families. They were happy to have the jobs and more than a few used the workshops in Pocatello as a jumping-off point to a new career elsewhere.

The workers had another advantage in the unions, established during the Gilded Age, and their ability to strike and collectively bargain. Such labor organizations increased worker safety and discouraged many of the abuses that had been all too common only a decade before.

Pocatello's politicians and businesses were happy too as wages from the blue collar workers quickly dispersed into the local economy and helped build the city. In the 1910s it seemed that Pocatello was well on its way to being the industrial powerhouse of Idaho.