STAY
CAR #306
We invite you to stay in our unique, restored train car. Car 306 came from the factory as a combination car, meaning it carried passengers, freight and mail. As such, it is divided into three main compartments. Upon first entering, the passenger compartment now serves as the kitchenette, dining room and living room. You next pass into the former freight room which now serves as a sitting room and bathroom. The floors show evidence of years of heavy crates being moved across them. A large metal pan with drains to the open air sat in part of the area the bathroom now occupies. Some of the freight that this car delivered, included large blocks of cut lake ice that families and businesses used for refrigeration one hundred years ago. Passing into the last compartment, you enter the former mailroom, which now serves as the master bedroom. As the train made its daily route from Palouse, WA to Bovill, ID, it picked up mail at each station, a clerk sorted it, and it dropped off the sorted mail on its way back. Note the mail slots on either side of the car next to the exterior doors. The restoration of this car was filmed as part of the tv show, "Restoration Road" starring Clint Harp. Watch it here
History
The Weyerhaeuser company bought vast tracts of north central Idaho in the early 1900’s in order to log the Western White Pine so abundant in this area. They formed the Potlatch Timber Company to own and process this timber and Potlatch in turn formed the Washington Idaho & Montana Railway to haul the timber to the mill in Potlatch, ID and as a secondary purpose, to provide mail and passenger service to the newly sprouted towns serving the timber industry. The train also hauled the finished lumber on to Palouse, WA where several other railheads could haul to connecting lines across the country. The WI&M purchased this car from the American Car & Foundry Company of St Charles, MO in September, 1909. They purchased another car, passenger only (car 308) shortly after and car 306 served as the smoking car and hauled freight and mail. When passenger volume began to decline, the railroad retired 308 but kept 306. Eventually passenger service declined to the point that a gas powered bus that ran on the tracks (nicknamed the “Bug”) took over all passenger service and 306 sat in the yard as a backup. Finally, around 1955, car 306 was removed from the tracks and used as a crew shelter. At this point the history of 306 goes a little fuzzy. Some of the railroaders remember the car being cut in half and then burnt. This obviously must have been a different car or we wouldn’t have anything to restore. What we do know is that one of our neighbors bought the car sometime in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s and used it to store feed for cattle. This went on until the early 1970’s when another neighbor pulled the car up near his home and built a barn over it. From that point it housed a few ranch hands and eventually about 10 cats. Despite a “mild” cat odor, not to mention the wheelbarrow loads of high grade fertilizer (aka cat droppings), we jumped at the chance when offered the opportunity to own the car. After a few dead ends, we found a reliable house mover and in December 2019, we began inching 306 out of the barn that had protected it for 45+ years. We moved it to its present site in February 2020 and began restoration work in earnest in March 2020. Our first guests stayed in the finished home the last weekend of August 2020.
