Santa Fe All the Way!.... or at least to San Bernadino?

 

New member Doug Nighswonger has a variety of equipment he brings into the club weekly and this one is different as Santa Fe with early F units is rare!

 

Quiet and reserved member Steve Weso treated us to videos this week plus this line up of modern diesels including a rare tiger striped version with black and orange on the nose. Soon the track dept.

will get authorization to ballast tis new track work.

 

Milwaukee Don keeps adding to his fleet of Milwaukee Road diesels as far as the eye can see.

 

Good , old reliable SP&S locos roll out of the Blue yard and on to the Blue main.  This all Alco collection comes from some guy they call Keith.

Wild weekend for the Greeners!

 

 

The middle of October tends to be a busy time for us Greeners as we host an open house the night before the train show and then we have multible tables at the show with estate

sales that we handle for guys that may have had a death in the family and want to dispose of dad's train collection. It gives us extra money to improve the layout, it doesn't happen

without funds as no tax money supports us! Here we have a newcomer to Spokane in the form of a midwesterner showing up with Milwaukee Road fast catching up.

 

This scene shows 2 giant Union Pacific Centennials with a freight train as a Montana Rail Link special passenger train passes by.

 

During our Saturday open house we were visited by a friend of Keith ( middle ) and John ( right ) all three were BNSF engineers and were reminiscing about the good old days of

railroading, They all got to ring the bell, blow the whistle and wake everyone up at 3 am. That his son to the extreme right.

 

Here we have 2 Northern Pacific freights fighting for who gets to the switch before the other. They happen to be on different railroad lines but they didn't know that!

 

New member Doug bring in different models every week besides his favorite Northwest stuff and Missouri Pacific was a first that I can recall.

Wild weekend for the Greeners!

The middle of October tends to be a busy time for us Greeners as we host an open house the night before the train show and then we have multible tables at the show with estate

sales that we handle for guys that may have had a death in the family and want to dispose of dad's train collection. It gives us extra money to improve the layout, it doesn't happen

without funds as no tax money supports us! Here we have a newcomer to Spokane in the form of a midwesterner showing up with Milwaukee Road fast catching up.

 

This scene shows 2 giant Union Pacific Centennials with a freight train as a Montana Rail Link special passenger train passes by.

 

During our Saturday open house we were visited by a friend of Keith ( middle ) and John ( right ) all three were BNSF engineers and were reminiscing about the good old days of

railroading, They all got to ring the bell, blow the whistle and wake everyone up at 3 am. That his son to the extreme right.

 

Here we have 2 Northern Pacific freights fighting for who gets to the switch before the other. They happen to be on different railroad lines but they didn't know that!

 

New member Doug bring in different models every week besides his favorite Northwest stuff and Missouri Pacific was a first that I can recall.

How to build a tunnel portal and other trivia!

We reconfigured the rail at the back area and that necessitated changes in the tunnel as well. I said

what ever you wanted to do I could fix it. And they took me up on it! So out comes the rock castings I

had in stock, patched pieces to fit with the help of new member Ver Walker and spackled them together.

The metal angle brackets are for the magnets to hold on to. JIm Bowden built the tunnel portal entrance.

 

What magnets? The magnets on the opposite side of the tunnel portal as it will hold until someone

needs to get back in there again and will be able to reach stuff.

 

Now that looks better!! I colorized the rocks to match what I did 8 years ago. Stained the tunnel portal

with thinned black and grimy black on the top of the portal. Now I'm waiting on the word to do the

ballast on the tracks and inside the tunnel.

 

Jack Pappas added the Evergreen name to a small switcher. Jack been doing ballasting around the layout.

 

Will Windom did the weathering for his made up railroad called Santiam River from his childhood days

in Oregon. Will uses chalks as does Jack but I was never able to master that stuff.

 

AWOL member Doug Neighschwanger brought this weeks ago and I think it is worth showing as it

really runs on its own.

 

 

Getting ready for the open house on Saturday night!

 

One of the many railroads that one of our new members Doug brought into our club is this set of Chicago & Northwestern F units. The railroad was absorbed into the

Union Pacific some 25 years ago.

 

The BN merger allows this scene to happen as they would never been together before it. We see the Great Northern power running with a Northern Pacific diesel

running across Beaver Canyon on the Evergreen layout.

 

Keith has 4 SP&S Alcos working the grades on the layout as they were the typical power the SP&S used before the BN merger.

 

The mighty Weso  matched reality of Yardley, Washington as the Colville branch sees this lash up just about every day. The middle BNSF units are GP50 B units without

cabs but add power and traction to the train neverless.

 

The Milwaukee Road did their fair share of moving logs in Idaho and Western Washington so Don Carnegie matches the effort with his own on Mount Whitney in

the back of the layout. See you Saturday, October 14th from 5 to 9 pm at 18213 East Appleway in the Spokane Valley. By the way, there is no charge to visit us!

What if the Milwaukee Road survived?

 

Every so often Don Carnegie brings out a brand new "what if" they were able to avoid bankruptsy and purchase the newest GE or EMD engine models. Here's what they

would have looked like in the form of an 1/87 scale model. They certainly would have been "Little Joe Killers" as electrication would not have been needed.

 

What if the Spokane, Portland & Seattle had 4-6-6-4 Challengers just like the big railroads? Oh wait , they did have a few and the came to Spokane quite often.

Steve Weso's model of the #900 is a thing of beauty as it stops at the Bakersville station...but why? It's a freight train?

 

Mr SP&S himself, Keith Wiles had his train our on the main line last week as it made its way past the Blue Main yard.

 

By accident I caught 3 trans cabooses in one shot without any encouragement of the owners. What's a caboose you might ask? You will have a ask a member smarter than me.

 

Scotty Smith is a big Union Pacific fan especially he likes the large units the railroad had such as Gas Turbines,  Centennials and these high horsepower units.

Out for a test run to see if everything is working properly.

We've been working on our railroad for the open house!

 

I stopped by the club today to find Marvin and Jim Bowden working on the back region of the layout and what a fine job they are doing. We straightened the Red

and Blue Main lines out and added a either direction crossover plus the third line to have passenger trains get to Union Station on the other side of Cobbleton.

 

Marvin tested his Amtrak train on the new track to make sure it was performing properly.

The ballast and the scenery may not be done in time for the open house but trains will be running!

 

Another improvement to the club is this shelf cabinet that Rod Huffman built for us to hold train boxes and storage  below. Keith Wiles did the paint job.

 

Our open house will be on Saturday, October 14th from 5 pm to 9 pm, that's the night before the train show so visitors will have something to do instead of

visiting a bar and get into a fist fight that you may lose.  We are at 18213 East Appleway. Take the I-90 exit #293 and go south to Appleway, turn right 3 blocks.

Destruction and rebirth of the Quinn Building in Spokane.

 

I purchased this building in 1980 and it was built as a Safeway store in 1929. I made it an ad agency out of it.

My daughter Bonnie took over some 10 years ago and things are about to change in a big way.

Here we see the foot of my grandson Randy Young knocking down the lath and plaster of the original

ceiling of my advertising office in Spokane. It was raining rocks and dust for days in the office. Bonnie wanted

the building to look "industrial", open and airy. What?????

The employees had to find other places to conduct business in other parts of the building while this

place was "cleaned up".

 

This past weekend was time to take apart the kitchen/lunch room and these T-111 panels started

coming off. That was the easy part. The floor I put down some 30 years ago has to be removed as well.

And the wood beams in the ceiling. They were a bit dangerous in their removal!

 

That's Jerry Jr working a tile machine for digging out the tiles but the underlayment made it real tough.

Grandson David Young, Bonnie's other boy, found another answer with sweat and muscle and a crowbar to

lift sections at a time and that helped. That's Jordan to the left giving advice and help.

 

When it started coming together I sure felt a lot better to see things envisioned by others. Offices to

the left and right with the center open to the ceiling. Now it all starts to make sense.

 

That's the conference room in the front of the windows, sofas and chairs and tables to make it real

comfortable to work in and the floor with carpet that looks awesome! Windows are now in the office

areas and doors have yet to be decided.

 

This is what you would see from the reception area. I would say that looks inviting for someone to be

impressed? That's the new Quinn look on the sign that will be hung somewhere.

 

The front is still being worked on but as you can see a water feature has been installed and the

wrought iron fence has been installed. Glass has yet to be installed on the top panels. My daughter

is some kind of gal! I'm some kind of dad but don't tell anybody!