Puget Sound Shore Railroad

The Puget Sound Shore Railroad and successor Northern Pacific and Puget Sound Shore Railroad built a branch line of the Northern Pacific Railroad between Puyallup and Seattle, Washington, U.S., and partially constructed a line around the east side of Lake Washington to Woodinville.

After Congress chartered the Northern Pacific Railroad (NP) in 1864, the communities along Puget Sound competed to be its Pacific terminus. Tacoma, about 40 miles (64 km) south of Seattle, became the winner in July 1873, when the NP, then building north from Portland, selected it. Seattle businessmen immediately incorporated the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad and Transportation Company to build their own line east, but were only able to build 20 miles (32 km) of narrow gauge line to a coal mine at Newcastle. Although it proved successful in carrying coal to the ocean, it did not give Seattle its eastward connection.

Henry Villard, owner of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, bought the Seattle and Walla Walla in November 1880 and reorganized it as the Columbia and Puget Sound Railroad (C&PS), intending to connect the two in eastern Washington. Villard gained control of the NP in June 1881, and created the Oregon and Transcontinental Company (O&T) as a holding company for the NP and other companies that would build branch lines prohibited by the NP's charter. In contrast to the NP's earlier spurning of Seattle, Villard promised that the main line would not end at Tacoma, which it had reached in 1874, but would continue to Seattle.

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