go to the Northwest Railway Museum at Snoqualmie to view their extensive collection of vintage equipment and ride the Museum train. Another group will take a Seattle Traction Tour, including all things running under overhead wire, including light rail, trolleys, rubber-tired electric busses and more. A tour of several shop facilities will be included.
Thursday we’ll visit the Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad arriving by rail, and then riding behind steam from Eatonville to Mineral. The power will be the world’s only operating Willamette geared locomotive (don’t you DARE call it a Shay!) and we’ll see numerous other geared and rod type locomotives, some under steam while we’re there. A BIG day for logging enthusiasts. Back in Tacoma, there’ll be a night photo session conducted by Steve Barry, Editor of
Railfan & Railroad
magazine at the shops of Tacoma Rail, which will include the
4449 under steam!
Saturday, it is planned that the SP 4449
will pull our special train through Stampede
Tunnel to Easton, WA, where it will be turned
on the wye built by BNSF for snow equipment
and then return to Tacoma. Three classes of
seating will be available; coach, club and dome.
This is mostly freight-only trackage and genuine
“rare mileage” for collectors.
There’s much more, including non-rail
events, seminars by prominent historians and
authors and another high-speed steam trip from
Tacoma back to Portland on Sunday. Visit
http://www.cascaderails2011.com/
for all the details. Good exposure to full-size
railroads and railroading makes us all better
modelers; why not plan to join us?
By Bill Chapman
It’s going to be a big summer for railroad activities in the west!
In addition to our own NMRA Annual Convention Extra 2011 West in Sacramento (July 3-9), The National Railway Historical Society holds its Annual Convention, Cascade Rails 2011, in Tacoma, Washington June 20-26. Just like a “Subway Series”, you could “commute” by train between them; Amtrak’s “Coast Starlight” makes a handy connection!
NRHS takes a little different approach than NMRA. The accent is on history, and the Pacific Northwest is full of railroad history.
Both the Milwaukee Road and the Northern Pacific used this handsome city south of Seattle as their western terminus, and the Great Northern and the Union Pacific Railroads served it as well. Tacoma’s claim to fame was natural resources - minerals and logging specifically. The water connection; docks on Commencement Bay with a connection to the Pacific Ocean were the defining reasons railroads invested so heavily in the area. Even today the railroad connection is predominately ocean-going containers loaded in the massive Port of Tacoma facilities.
The NRHS Convention will celebrate this history. Included is a trip on the Chehalis - Centralia Railroad in Lewis County on Monday, utilizing a 1916 2-8-2 locomotive once operated by the Cowlitz, Chehalis & Cascade Railroad on former Milwaukee Road/Chehalis Western track.
Tuesday it’s high-speed mainline running with the SP 4449 from Vancouver WA to Tacoma. This requested special move is to get the Amtrak equipment to be used at the convention to Tacoma. For a number of reasons, this is an important and compelling ride; when the Lakewood Bypass through Tacoma is completed in a year, there will be no more passenger service (Amtrak included) through the Nelson Bennett and Ruston tunnels under Point Defiance west of Tacoma. All Amtrak and Sounder trains will use the bypass, which traverses the metropolitan area instead of the more scenic “Water Level” route. Better get your ride in now!
Wednesday there are decisions to be made; one group will
By Clyde Queen, Jr., MMR
Have you ever wondered what happened to all those old 40' PS-1 boxcars or 50' plug door boxcars when the railroads retired them for newer updated cars?
Your answer may well be that they went to the scrape yard to be torched, and yes many of these cars meet just that fate. Some of you may say that the railroads turned some of these old cars into Maintenance of Way equipment, which
