Sometimes I think my neighbors are a bunch of turkeys???

Does this remind any of you of an obscure rock & roll band photo from the 1960s??? These guys are part of a 15 member gang of turkeys that hang out on the bluff overlooking
I-90 in the Spokane Valley, about 3 blocks from my new home. No one needs to go hungry this Thanksgiving around here!!!
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I saw the real ones today at the east end of Yardley this morning showing these GP-50s that used to be Santa Fe mainline units hauling intermodal freights, now they work a branch line
North of Spokane to Chewelah or Colville, Washington. Notice the middle units are cables and serve as power units with no crew access so the lead unit needs a cab to run them.
The Mighty Weso owns the models, the real ones are owned by Warren Buffet.
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Looks like we moved to Cheyenne where Union Pacific was the home base for big power such as the double engine Centennials they ran in the late 60s and into the 70s. Larry Sorenson
Now has 6 of these monsters, some with sound and they are very impressive to see run.
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What could more impressive than a Northern Pacific passenger train is having 2 of them running at the same time. Marvin had a version for the Mainstreeter as well as a version
Of the North Coast Limited that featured 4 domes per train set. Back in the day I rode in the domes heading out west in 1963 and 1967 and what a treat it was for me and the wife.
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Finally we have a freight train pulled by SP&S Alco Century 425s that visited Spokane on a daily basis back in 1960s. It was nice to have your city's name on the sides of the units
Keith Wiles is the president of this smaller version.
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Member 44 is Robert Whiffen....when will it ever end?

Robert is moving to the Spokane area from the West side of Washington State in late May and wanted to make sure he had a slot at
the Evergreen club when he arrived. Robert is 6' 6" and joins the ranks of our larger members such as Scotty, Rodney and Jesse.
He was a member of the Longview train club and knows Robert Case, an ex-member who also plans to rejoin in Sept. Welcome Robert!
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Speaking of Big Boys, here's a model of a real Big Boy, a 4-8-8-4 giant that Union Pacific had several dozen of in the late 40's and 50's.
I think this one was run by Larry Sorenson and if I'm wrong I will hear from the mob that I got it wrong.
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It's the Mighty Weso's train featuring a brand new, C-636 Alco that must have just had the wrapping taken off and out of the
Box. That won't last long with the smoke they usually put out and weathered them up like God intended. Steve knows him personally.
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I'm switching from Windows Live Mail to Outlook and I can't tell if I showed this train before ( nor can I remember if I did) but this
Baldwin switcher is a Doug N. model that NP ran in the Spokane area in the late 60s. I think that's my flat car?
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Another railfan gets caught trespassing on the mighty BNSF tracks and this time he deserves a ticket. I think that's a cop waving
but where is his gun? I wonder if the railfan is a friend of the Ford Model A or Model T club? Maybe its Don Carnegie?
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Member 42 and other railroad activities!

 

Jack had his little BNSF loco doing switching duties at Bakersville today. Jack seems to like the challenge

of switching cars into different locations on the layout. Atta Boy Jack!

 

Jesse has his BN GP15 doing a local job while Steve Weso had a mainline freight moving a string

of auto racks to distant customers.

 

Our youngest non-member Eliam had this GN steamer pulling several passenger cars on the Green Branch

as a celebration of railfans made it desirable to pull off this unique event.

 

Rodney has been working on the trolley line and I am happy to see that it is working again with a

little labor and love to make it come alive again. Thanks Rodney, he is another retired railroader

that has joined the Evergreen club. That makes 7 ex-railroaders part of our group.

 

Can you see the locomotives on the far side of the aisle? They are 2 Great Northern F units pulling

90 ore cars jut like they do today in the ore fields of Minnesota. The cars are short because the ore

is so heavy they can't make them much bigger. Doug N. is the owner. The ore is needed to make steel.

 

Remember member 42..... its Scott Davis, a retired Army soldier that has gotten back into the hobby

and joined our club. We once were 12 members strong....now we are 42 members! Welcome Scott.

The age of the famous flat faced Behemoths!

 

Once upon a time when steam engines ran backwards to go forwards such a thing

happened on a small railroad called the Southern Pacific. Here we have 2 of these

creatures lining up for another adventure on the Evergreen Railroad. Larry

Sorenson owns them both.

 

They ran backwards because the SP had things like tunnels and snowsheds in the Cascade and Sierra

Mountains where smoke could make train crews very unhealthy with the smoke coming at them,

especially if the train stalled in the middle of their journey. Many men fell until they figured this out.

Say, is that Jack in the background?

 

Diesels did not smoke as much as steam engines and they lived happily ever after on most railroads.

This F unit set is a Union Pacific train owned by member Burt Whitney.

 

I tried to photograph Greg Mercier's beautiful SP&S wreck crane and all sorts of lighting efforts were

tried to show the detail.

 

This time I caught it in good light to show all the monkey motion that these creatures had to lift things

off the ground.

 

Greg also had a beautiful SP&S 4-6-6-4 Challenger with a long string of ice reefers with a lonely Baldwin

diesel going the other way with a short way freight. Both types of power visited Spokane in their day.