Camas Prairie Railroad

Camas Prairie Railroad

Camas Prairie Railroad Company (reporting mark CSP) was a short line railroad in northern Idaho jointly owned and operated by Northern Pacific Railway and Union Pacific Railroad. The Camas Prairie Railroad was known as the "railroad on stilts" due to the many wooden trestles. In one five-mile (8 km) stretch, there were more than a dozen trestles. The CSP was a remnant of the great railroad wars in the 19th and 20th century, when Edward H. Harriman and James J. Hill were fighting over this whole inland area to see who could get the most rails into the Pacific Northwest.

They called it "The War" and the Camas Prairie Railroad was the result of that competition and in many ways, the end of the war. In the end, the railroads co-operated to build the Camas Prairie Railroad. The CSP was built to tap the rolling, fertile hills of the Camas Prairie and the timber of the forested hills and canyonlands of the Clearwater River. Service to the south terminus of the second subdivision line at Grangeville commenced in December 1908 and continued for 92 years.

Parts of the railroad are now operated by the Great Northwest Railroad and the Bountiful Grain and Craig Mountain Railroad (BGCM).