Shortest Steam Railroad
in the World
From the early 1900s to the 1930s there used to be a railroad for hauling both lumber and passengers at
Stanwood, Washington known as the Hall & Hall Railroad. At the time, the Hall & Hall Railroad
(H&H RR Co.) was called the shortest steam railroad in the world. The railroad was owned and
operated by John Hall and was only one mile long, running from a couple lumber mills along the
Stillaguamish River at Stanwood, to the Great Northern Railroad at East Stanwood. The above photograph
shows the Hall & Hall No. 1 locomotive, which replaced a steam dummy named “Dinky”
that pulled a passenger coach that is said to have been a former Seattle streetcar. The steam dummy, a
common name for a small enclosed steam powered railcar, also pulled freight cars carrying lumber. The
Hall & Hall No. 1 locomotive was a Climax, Class B, 20-ton locomotive (c/n 407), built in 1903 by the
Climax Manufacturing Company, at Corry, Pennsylvania. Prior to hauling lumber on the Hall & Hall
Railroad at Stanwood, the locomotive hauled for a lumber company at Eufaula, Washington and for a couple
different lumber companies at Maple Valley, Washington. The locomotive was scrapped in about 1941.
<< BACK
Andrew Craig Magnuson
Forks, Washington
February 15, 2007
Copyright © by Andrew Craig Magnuson
|