Feb 26, 2018

Fw: West of Freya Street Bridge, before and after.

A few years ago I took this photo of 2 trains going west near the Freya bridge. Now it's a parking lot
for new cars from the factories. But it always was not this way, It was the home of a large meat packing plant.
The upper tracks was the original Northern Pacific main line. The lower line was the new main line.
 
Looking west from the bridge itself, the photographer shot the east entrance through the fence.
 
My suspicions is that the car was the photographer's.
 
The new main has been installed on the left. The Armour plant is now located on the north track.
Next time you cross the Freya bridge check it out. Keith Wiles worked this area when is worked for the
BNSF as the west switcher for the Yardley yard. When they banned cattle cars from the railroad that
took out the need for the plant.  Nothing ever stays the same.
 
 

Feb 24, 2018

Special invitation to a special night at the Evergreen Railroad!

 
 
 
 
 
The Spokane Train Show is next Sunday and we at the Evergreen club open our club to the visitors
coming into town and the locals and give them something to do the night before the show.
Besides we like to show off a little bit as well! Jerry
 
 

Feb 23, 2018

50s and 60s video by WESO

 
 
 
The theme makes this one of the best videos I have ever seen. Jerry
 
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI0R3aEbISs




Feb 21, 2018

Urban Renewal comes to the Evergreen Railroad!

The backside of Cobbleton had a small rail yard for the Red Main rail line. The guys thought that it was
a static area where it could be better utilized as an industrial area. We took a vote at our last business
meeting to make it happen.
 
Like magic it disappeared in a few days after the vote. Will Windom poses for the camera after it was
removed from this earth. Paper switch copies give Will the ability to figure out the best placement for the
track plus the blue squares are the footprints for new replacement buildings.
 
Bakersville crime spree is squashed by the local police as the town pimp was arrested by the boys
in blue. Rumor has it that one of the customers caught was the local BNSF railroad cop on duty.
I say throw the book at him! Let him serve 50 hours of model train service!
 
The merger is will on its way as multible loco colors are apparent in this freight heading down the main.
 
The power towers are now installed with blinking lights to keep aircraft away while a Frisco passenger
train approaches the area. Next is stringing wire for Bakersville.
 
Unit train of Maersk containers gets ready to move product across the country.

Feb 19, 2018

Fw: Is it snowing....somewhere?

 
It must be for the management of the Santiam & Western to bring out the push plow to open up the
main line! Looks like the boys put a little extra effort to make her look almost as good as new!
 
Bakersville can be a busy place as 2 competitors pass each other on different main lines.
 
Another Doug H. special line up of 4 Louisville & Nashville yard goats plus somebody's red goat sit
on the number one track in the Blue Main yard. Strange that they would all be numbered 99?????
All steam engines are not the same size or do the same job. The bigger the wheels the faster it could go
but the smaller wheels could be more inclined to pull more weight but it a slower pace.
 
This little Northern Pacific 2-8-0 is owned by Greg Mercier, a recent Western Washington resident
who decided to retire in Northern Idaho. Potatoes anyone?
 
Last but not least is our Air Force crew chief who is a very
unique individual. This shirt message is from the puppeteer
who has a Muslim terrorist puppet who talks this way. Strange?
 
 

Feb 17, 2018

Fw: We have 2 towers in Spokane....I own one of them!

 
Once upon a time, besides the tower at the Spokane County Courthouse, there was a railroad station
in Spokane called the GN and SP&S station. It had a tower attached to it to let people know where to go
to get on a train to places like Chicago, St. Paul and a sleepy town west of here called Seattle. That's one
of the billboards we purchased to alert the folks as to what was going on.
 
A few railfans and citizens thought the station should be saved
when the city removed the stations from the Riverfront Park Plan
to the Expo "74 plan. I led the fight to save the stations by putting
the issue to a vote of the people. It only got 43 percent favorable.
The city in turn saved the tower. Some called it the "Quinn" tower.
 
After 46 years it has been remembered in the newly remodeled
Quinn building on West Garland Avenue in Spokane by my
lovely daughter Bonnie with this 11 foot 8 inch rendering on the kitchen
wall. My artist of over 20 years Vic Holman points it out to me.
 
There's my little girl now in front of the Quinn building with the
new fountain and fence to keep out the wanderers. The pencil was
my idea some 40 years ago. I'm a lucky man!

Feb 14, 2018

Fw: Another boring day at the Evergreen!

 
 
Train after train running the mains....when will it ever stop! Hopefully never as we seem to be having
too much fun with our clothes on! Mike Baker was running  his BN units on Tuesday.
 
Jack Pappas had his 3 BNSF beauties pulling a long freight.
 
Jim Bowden showed off his 2 GN Alco FAs that are copies of actual units that ran out of Hillyard until
they sold them to stepchild SP&S who loved the Alcos.
 
Will and Jerry (me) worked the mountain to create flat spots for the power towers that will soon allow
Bakersville to bring them into the 20th Century. Candle sales will suffer with the arrival of electricity.
 
Rod H. had this car on his train and told me that this was a Gorre & Diphetid car from the John Allan
collection. He was the premier modeler of the 1950s and 1960s. As Dolly Pardon said on the Johnny Carson
show it costs a lot of money to look this trashy.
 
Plenty of action on both the Red Main line and the Blue Main line as this Chicago & Northwestern
train has to deal with tunnels and grades which they had very little to deal with in the midwest.
 
Rod loves to catch me taking a nap or some compromising photo so here's one for him. Notice the
image on his phone is his hand! Didn't know that when I shot it but works for me to show you.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Feb 5, 2018

What? Looks like we moving to Cheyenne, Wyoming?

 
Blue Main yard had a lot of visitors on Thursday night in the form of Union Pacific Challengers and Big Boys.
New member Larry Sorenson brought in 4 of these monsters and Tom Kirk had one 4-6-6-4 as well.
Each week I seem to be surprised by the quality and quantity of the members' collections of models.
 
You know you've arrived as an up and coming town when you have advertisers on billboards. The SP&S
let people know their wheels were just as big as the larger railroads.
 
Gotta have an eastern railroad in the system somewhere with Doug N. as a member. This little switcher
is moving a few box cars to customers along the line.
 
Janis had her American Freedom train engine pulling a bunch of centennial box cars last week.
Red, white and blue was certainly the theme.
 
The NP and the Frisco will soon merge together in 1970 but today they are competitors with very
similar equipment on the form of F units
 
The next major change at the club will be the Red yard turning into an industrial site. Plans are drawn
up and will be presented to the members at our next business meeting. This UP Challenger was not
in the first shot on this e-mail.