The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche | 
 enlarge | Author: Gary Krist
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 222915
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0805083294
Dewey Decimal Number: 385
EAN: 9780805083293
ASIN: 0805083294
Publication Date: January 22, 2008
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Product Description
“Krist does wonders . . . [He] describes the frantic rescue efforts . . . and the malevolent, unending storm. In a thrilling, climactic chapter, he conjures forth the avalanche.”—The New York Times In February 1910, a monstrous, record-breaking blizzard hit the Northwest. Nowhere was the danger more terrifying than near a tiny town called Wellington, perched high in the Cascade Mountains, where a desperate situation evolved: two trainloads of cold, hungry passengers and their crews found themselves marooned. For days, an army of the Great Northern Railroad’s most dedicated men worked to rescue the trains, but just when escape seemed possible, the unthinkable occurred—a colossal avalanche tumbled down, sweeping the trains over the steep slope and down the mountainside. Centered on the astonishing spectacle of our nation’s deadliest avalanche, The White Cascade is the masterfully told story of a never-before-documented tragedy.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Excellent read April 19, 2008
Very enjoyable, well documented book. I also enjoyed the early history of railroading and Washington state.
Coleen from Kent, Wa
A Well-Written Story about a Long-Forgotten Disaster March 24, 2008
I must admit that I'm a train buff, and perhaps that's the reason that I enjoyed this book so much. However, Gary Krist has meticulously researched the background information associated with this long-forgotten railroad disaster in the Pacific Northwest's Cascade mountains and has brought the characters that played major roles in the calamity to life in a riveting, true tale of how nature still can wreak havoc with the best laid plans of man. Once I started reading this book, I found it hard to put down, even though I knew what the ending would be before I turned to the first page.
MAN VS. NATURE... February 25, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a riveting account of the Great Northern Railway disaster of 1910, in which a passenger train and a mail train on their way to Seattle were trapped high up on a steep ridge in the Cascade mountains in Washington state during a blizzard. Although a battalion of men were engaged in trying to clear the tracks, so that the trains could proceed to their destination, they were fighting a losing battle with snow drifts as high as thirty feet.
Day after day, the passengers and crews nervously waited, the rumblings of avalanches all around them. Six nights later, with the onset of a freak thunderstorm, the inevitable happened and a huge avalanche engulfed the trains and sent them plummeting down the mountain side.
The author sets the tragedy into a historical context, giving the reader an idea of the place that railways had in terms of the national economy. He also makes the account eminently interesting because of the human perspective he able to provide, drawing upon the writings and letters some of the passengers left behind, as well as the court transcripts of ensuing lawsuits. It is a most poignant account of a tragedy, and one that will keep the reader turning the pages.
The book also includes sixteen pages of archival photographs that add to the reader's enjoyment of this wonderfully written, well-researched book. Bravo!
Very well written January 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
What a great story. I have been interested in railroads since I was a kid. I would have loved to live in the age of live steam. This book is very well written and very informative about railroad history, especially here in the Cascades. I cross Stevens Pass often and look over the edge of the highway to still see the last concrete snowshed along the hillside far below.
Excellent!!
ATragedy in the Washington Cascades January 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I grew up in the state of Washington, where I was part of a railroad family: my grandfather worked for the Milwaukee Railroad and my uncle for the Northern Pacific. I lived and traveled in Washington for over 50 years, going over Stevens Pass a number of times, though never on the train.
But not until the release of Gary Krist's book The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche was I aware that the deadliest avalanche in American history and one of railroading's great tragedies had taken place in my home state right on Stevens Pass almost 100 years ago.
Two trains headed west to Washington's Puget Sound were caught in an unexpectedly powerful winter storm at the Wellington station, high up in the Cascade Mountains. The White Cascade tells the story of how and why the trains were caught in what turned out to be a fatal situation; of the attempts to rescue the passengers; and of the inquest afterward in regard to the Great Northern's liability. The book is well-researched and documented and features a number of photographs as well as a list of those who died.
Krist focuses on the stranded passengers and on James H. O'Neill, who was responsible for railroad operations in that area. Drawing on letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper accounts, court records, corporate archives, and contact with family members of some of those involved with the accident, Krist reveals the reasons why some of the passengers were on the train, and the way they interacted during the long and ultimately futile attempt on the part of the railroad to rescue them. We meet and get to know a number of them: some who will live, some who will die. We see families ripped apart, survivors whose lives will never be the same again. We follow James H. O'Neill's all-out attempt to save the doomed trains, the media treatment of the incident, and the Great Northern's defense against those who held it responsible for what happened.
This is an engrossing book for anyone interested in railroads, disasters, history, or any combination of the three. Krist's style is easy to read and puts you right there with the passengers, as their frustration with the inconvenience of what initially seemed a short delay turns into apprehension, fear, and foreboding; with the rescuers, as they work at clearing track in blizzard conditions, racing against time and ultimately losing the battle; with O'Neill, as he gives his all, only to see the Great Northern criticized for not giving enough.
This is a powerful story, all the more powerful for being real. Approximately 100 people were killed and dozens more injured: passengers, railroad workers, hired laborers. As a result of the tragedy, the town of Wellington was renamed Tye; ultimately a railroad tunnel was built that bypassed it, and it ceased to exist. In an interesting personal twist, after reading the book, I discovered that one of my best friends lost a relative in the disaster. The White Cascade is a fitting tribute to his memory, as well as those of the others who died at Wellington.
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