The amazing Washington State History Museum in Tacoma!

They didn't build it in Spokane! We had to do it on our own! This building is next to the old NP Tacoma station and is it a beauty.  They had lots of stuff in here but we are after the railroad end of it. The other guys with us were Ron, Stan and Sid from the great state of Wenatchee.

 

This shows the railroads of the area using HO models and did they do a terrific job. They have 50 volunteers but 20 do most of the work. Every scene is a copy of the real thing. The bridges, the factories, stations, etc. I heard about it but this is the first time I saw it. The edge treatment was unique as it is an antiqued pattern instead of black, or green or some solid color. I like it! Everything built was by volunteers.

The overhead wire is for the Milwaukee Road part of the layout. Not only was it big but the detail was impressive.

It was very impressive and I want to go back. Everyone should see it and you don't need to be a modeler.

 

This is the Northern Pacific roundhouse in Tacoma and I saw the real thing some 30 years ago on the

day before they were to tear it down.

It's the real thing just like the Coke commercials used to say before they came out with the other Coke. The NP line parallels the Milwaukee tracks for many miles on the coast.

Is it big? It's real big! Look at the 3 levels of holding tracks and scenery displays. We asked about the funding and they had $20,000 start up money with $8,000 per year since then. We got into the inner part of the layout when Marvin asked if we could! We were modelers after all...the brotherhood.

 

 

A bridge too far?

Only you military historians will know what the caption refers to but I needed a Subject line that worked. 

Great Northern's most important bridge in Eastern Washington was the Fort Wright Bridge in West Spokane. I could count on getting my Western Star passenger photos if I got there at 3 pm and waited a few minutes for it to arrive. It didn't survive the track realignment after the BN merger.

This one is the ex-NP Irvin Bridge where shots can be taken of the north side of the bridge in the summer months such as this one of a local going back to Spokane from Trentwood Industrial Park. It was a navy base during World War 2. The stone abutment is the original main line for the NP Railroad.

 

For a number of years I would venture into Marias Pass when they put on the Altmont Railfans gathering in October at the Izaac Walton Inn in Essex, Montana. Back in the good old days the F units were used as helpers and this set is pushing a mixed freight east over one of many bridges going to the summit.

The bridge south of Wenatchee is a a one-of-a-kind GN bridge because it is 2 bridges in one: Instead of closing traffic to install a heavier bridge they built a bridge around the existing one and kept things moving. Pretty clever engineers (the kind who don't have horns to blow).

Here's another example of "two bridges in one" at a place called the Keddie Wye on the Feather River in Northern California. The tracks to the right go to Reno, Nevada and the tracks to the left go north to the SP&S line on the Columbia River in Washington State.

 

The bridge that changed it all in Spokane is the Latah Bridge where all traffic now flows across including Union Pacific freights from Canada.  Phil Hastings shot many NP trains from this location on the tracks to the bottom of this photo in the early 50's.

Where the rail lines went west of Spokane.

The big change in Spokane railroads in 1973 was the Latah Bridge that changed everything. Now all the railroads could use one exit  from downtown Spokane using the ex-NP overhead where cars and trains need not co-exist. 

• The old UP track coming off High Bridge  is seen as a remnant to the right of the wye crossing over I-90.
• The SP&S line coming from Fort Wright crosses I-90 and you can still  see a shadow of the line lining up with the north leg of the wye.
• Trains going to/from Seattle use the north leg while most trains going to Portland go west on the south leg.
• The old NP line takes in the east bounds from Pasco/Portland.

Any questions? Did I get it right?

Looking back on the Great Northern depot

I came across an old postcard that I purchased when Moses was a teenager and I realized again how commerce was the keystone to the vitality of any city worth its salt. The Spokane River was on both sides of Havermale Island where the depot stood and on the south side they used the channel for power generation with the Washington Water Power/now Avista.  

We tried to save the station in 1971 but failed by a 43/57 voter approval. The city announced they were going to save the tower when the issue was still in doubt. Some in the group called it the "Quinn Tower".  Mike Applegate called it a success a few years ago! What!...... the building got torn down! He replied yes, but you changed the minds of the BN corporate to save Tacoma, Livingston, Missoula, Helena and others when you showed them the buildings still had value even if they did not serve the railroads! I don't know if that is true but I loved hearing it anyway!  Jerry PS. There is no bell in the tower!

Visiting the GN shops in Hillyard 40 years ago.

Here I am in the middle of the repair shops at Hillyard and no one is yelling at me to get out. I guess I was not a terrorist threat back then!  The first time I saw BN green is that engine to the right in the primer green undercoat.

In 1967 GN introduced a new color for their railroad in the form of Big Sky Blue. It was not received well by most of the GN fans. This is the view from the GN control tower base on the west side of the tracks.

During a 1970 NRHS Convention we got to visit the control tower and this mostly Big Sky engines are coming in from Seattle, passing through the yard before heading east again. 

A big deal for the facility was this transfer table that could move engines and cars between different buildings.

This shot was taken from the Francis Ave. overpass with a 300 mm lens back in the good old days.  The control

tower can be seen in the background. The main lines were to the far right of the photo. BN switcher does the work so the yard may have 2 more years to survive when I took this photo in 1972.

The GN herald on the building came down right after the BN merger was announced. Can't have any of that

heritage stuff surviving! The SP&S Railroad used Hillyard exclusively except for the 2 FA's that hung out

at Parkwater yards for the Scribner turn when cars were picked up or dropped off in Marshall Canyon for the NP.

The passenger station to the right was moved to the Spokane Valley and made into an unsuccessful

restaurant and is still there in poor repair. It was hauled by a moving company over Bigalow

Gulch and I have pictures to prove it.

Different eras of power are shown here as the blue unit is from the 50s and the big orange unit is a

passenger unit from the late 60s. The small box to the rear is a clue for the steam generator unit.

Looking north from the Francis Avenue bridge shows how big the yard was and it had a hump in the middle. The crews always had to be aware that cars can roll out either end if not carefully set with brakes. The Western Fruit Express repair shops are on the slight rise to the right of the photos. Sometimes it snows in Spokane.

Looking south on a much better day shows the cattle pens that were there. The tracks that angled off to the left are in the repair tracks. Look how they used to haul wood with banding on groups to hold them in place. Where's OSHA?

I remember Spokane especially the Great Northern

We lived in Spokane for almost 2 years before the cold winter of 1968-69 arrived and did I think twice about the wisdom of moving here! On this day in January 1969 the weather was minus 20 degrees and looking at the water to the east of the Great Northern station you can see the "heat" coming off the water in relation to the air temps.

Big Sky Blue was about to be bumped from the railroad as the BN merger is about to take over. This is a view of Hillyard looking northeast from the Francis Ave bridge. Western Fruit Express is in the background. Now this scene has but 2 tracks passing through to Colville, Washington.

One of my all time favorite places to take photos was at the Great Northern station where you could cross the tracks at Howard Street, park the car next to the tracks and take pictures without anybody stopping you or even question you and your intent. The Empire Builder came in late to Spokane and handed over cars to the SP&S for the Portland, Oregon train. The tower is the only thing remaining in this photo.

The Western Star was my favorite train to photograph on the GN as it arrived in Spokane around 2:30 pm and departed at 3 pm. Check out the clock.

The 1968 NRHS convention in Spokane gave us access to Hillyard where major repairs were made to GN equipment. It was a huge facility that fell out of favor with the BN officials who looked for ways to economize on their property. It employed over 500 people at one time and now Hillyard is long gone. Check out that crazy company car on the bottom.

The Good Old Days in the Cascades

The Great Northern Railway is long gone, the electric locomotives retired, the depot is gone but the highway bridge remains. It is BNSF main line over Steven's Pass.

If you've ever traveled over US #2 from Seattle to Wenatchee you would have gone over this bridge. 2 miles away is a ski resort and to the top left of the photo is a small railroad town called Wellington/Tye.

In 1910 it snowed for 3 days at 1 foot of snow per hour that stopped all train travel in the mountains. 2 passenger trains were trapped across this valley where you see the cut in the mountain that the road currently goes.

The snow slides were coming and eventually one snow slide hit the passenger trains, steam engines, steam rotary plows and everything went into the canyon 100 people died that February in 1910 and to this day the worst railroad disaster in US history.

The site is now an historical place with appropiate markers. Jim Hill was so embarrased that it happened on his railroad that he started building a new route with an 8 mile tunnel to bypass the site where snow slides bring down rocks and trees on to the tracks and blocked in the trains.

The train in the photo just came out of the tunnel.

Kind of like the Titanic but on a smaller scale.

Was the Great Northern Station in Spokane worth fighting over?‏

The countdown begins for Expo 74, the World's Fair in 1974 in Spokane, Washington.

This building and the Union Station were part of the Riverfront Park when they put it up

to a levy vote in 1971. It got 56 percent yes but it needed 60 percent to pass. Then Expo 74

plan shows up with the stations removed from the plan. What happened?

Being in advertising and a railfan nut I got involved with saving these structures. I got the Spokane Ad Club involved

as you can see on the poster. We had about 35 of these posters made for the effort to save them as the theme for

Expo 74 was "Recycling" and reuseing buildings seemed to fit that theory so off I went to"fight city hall".

We lost the vote by a 43 to 57 so down they came.  The city did not play fair but what is new about that? They tore up

the marble floors and photgraphed the dirt lines in the concrete using the picture in a newspaper ad saying "Do you

really want to save this old thing?"  Here a carne is tearing out the boiler from the building to the east of the station.

Down she comes. Santa Clause came to the Ad Club Christmas party that year and had a gift for me.

It was a brick from the Great Northern station and didn't everyone have a big laugh when

he gave it to me. I paused for a moment and said to the crowd " I wasn't so much concerned

with the bricks ....but how they were arranged!" I can still get angry over this destruction. Jerry Quinn