By Jon Talton, Columnist, The Seattle Times; February 26, 2019
Passengers stuck on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight for more than a day in Oregon got off lucky. The mishap, when the train hit a tree that had fallen on the tracks, is minor in the history of American railroading.
On March 1st, 1910, an avalanche on the Great Northern Railway in northeast King County swept two waiting trains down the mountainside, killing 96. It was one of the nation’s worst railroad disasters and led to construction of a longer, safer Cascade Tunnel.