Something old...something new!

It's 1967 all over again, especially in model railroading when you can get models like these that represent the way the real railroads looked back then when I moved out to Spokane. One of my photos I took back then was of the GN Hustle Muscle #400 that was published in one of the GN photo books.

 

The new model on the scene is this war baby 4-8-4 Daylight without the skirts and colors because of the war needs.  Chad brought it in Thursday and had the smoke unit working on it as well.

 

New member Tom Kirk took my Big Boy and UP Gas Turbine out for a spin pulling his own freight train.

Look what I found!

I knew there was something at Airway Heights near Fairchild Air Force base in the way of locomotives but didn't know how much was there.  This modern Canadian National caboose caught my eye first with its 2 smoke stacks. Does it get that cold up there to need 2 stoves?

 

Most of it was second generation stuff with railroad names on them that I never heard of. There were only EMD locos, no Baldwins, no Alcos.

 

It's prior owner was the famous Santa Fe. Who is Billy?  Billy Carter?

 

#324 is ready to put your name on the side of this loco and drive it away. All of these units are for sale or lease. Bring your checkbook.

 

Never heard of the Oregon Pacific but I do now.  WRIX initials were on most equipment.

 

Some 30 years ago the big railroads started to shed many of their branch lines and that created all these short lines without unions to run them. If the unions were included I would guess the railroads would have failed on financial issues.

Visiting sunny Bremerton, Washington

This weekend, 4 of us guys from Spokane and Wenatchee, Washington visited Bremerton Naval Base while the main reason was to attend a model train  show. The photos of these ships do not do them justice as to the size of these monsters! The one on the right was numbered 61 which we think is the Constellation.

 

This one was lettered so no guessing is needed. It's the Kitty Hawk and I remember this one involved in the rescue of the guys coming back from space shots and being picked up by this ship.

 

The other ships were numbered #64 and #63. All of them retired or mothballed except the Stennis that is the far away ship. That ramp in the foreground I walked on back in 1996 with a Boy Scout troop from New Jersey that my brother and his scout leaders brought with them on a 2200 mile tour of the Northwest. At that time it was the Battleship Missouri to the right and the Battleship New Jersey was where the Kitty Hawk is birthed.

 

Remember this ship. We think it was the Turner Joy. Remember this one? The North Vietnamese Navy approached this ship at high speed and they shot at their torpedo boats. Was it real? It got us to commit ground troops to Vietnam back in the good old days. To some, the ship needed to be sunk before we believe it happened.

Thursday Night Rumbles

Mr. California, John Smith had his SP Daylight making the rounds with a model of the only saved E8-9 at the Old Sacramento train museum.

 

Here is his stretched out passenger train set crossing Beaver Canyon.

 

A newcomer to Evergreen RR Modelers is Scotty Smith who brought in his years old purchase and finally ran it on something other than a 3 foot piece

of track in his home. He has a bunch of brand new UP hopper cars looking for something to haul.

 

Most of you might remember Scotty as one of us ex-River City members some 10 years ago. Scott is Mike Applegate size and a terrific addition to our club.

 

Brock showed up to the train club Thursday as his work schedule fin ally allowed him to be with us for the evening. He had these beautiful BNSF units pulling

a string of container/trailer flats at a prototype speed.

Railfanning...despite BNSF's jack-boot security policy

I found out recently that BNSF is cracking down on railfans and I am no exception. So the following photos were shot without putting a foot down on their sacred land. I am standing on the road 2 feet from the yellow line at Barker Road. I saw this guy coming and made it to the crossing before he did.

 

This comparison on an old SW1500 and a ex Santa Fe B unit seemed to say the newer stuff is just that much bigger. Still on a road near to a parking lot.

 

My 200 mm lens came in handy for this long shot of BN units sandwiching 4 of those ex-Santa Fe B units. They were not moving while I was there with one

eye on them and one eye on any vehicle traffic heading my way.

 

Heading home this afternoon I saw a headlight coming out of the UP/SI connection near the old Playfair property and I knew it was not BNSF but UP or

perhaps lease power so I set up on friendly territory above the tracks for this shot. The second unit was a lease unit that runs from Canada to the ocean.

 

The CP unit is not in a race with the BNSF train but is the pusher from the prior shot. Nobody is in the unit as it is controlled by the engineer in the front unit.

This BNSF train is a returning empty oil train heading back to the Balkin Oil Fields in North Dakota. That's a safety spacer car between the tank cars and the locos.

In 2011 BNSF made 1 billion dollars hauling oil. In 2015 it will be hauling 5 billion dollars of oil for us Americans.

All from private investment, not government!  Finally something to be happy about!

The Greatest Show on Earth......at least the Spokane Valley!

When I walked into the club on Saturday and found Steve Welton running 2 new passenger trains on the layout. They were the Rio Grande California Zephyr and the Santa Fe El Capitan each with 12 or 13 cars each.

Each had 4 F units on the point and all the cars were detailed and lighted. They seem to be the best models ever made and not much more can be done to make them better. I asked Steve how much did he spend on them and he started to tear up. I won't ask him again.

The Cal Zephyr lasted a few more years after Amtrak started and was a feature train for railfans during that time.

Steve also ran a "poor man's freight train with only 2 F units. They were both sounded and pulled about 20 reefers.

 

I originally started shooting it in the darkness with most of the club's overhead lights off.  Alas less light makes for less photo quality.

 

Is the Blue line out of business? They have no freight cars in the yard so has business dropped off so much that all cars are gone? Strange?

The new wall

Father Philippi Pesek is giving a blessing to the new wall at the Evergreen Railroad. Phil is not an official pastor but it looks like he is preaching to the followers when I took this photo of the new display. We took down the train cabinet as it was not being used and reset the photos and maps.

 

Three of the 4 different railroads that are shown and they all feature orange in their color scheme! This scene happens by accident and got the members to redo it for the photo!

 

New member Don Carnegie does a bit of switching in the Bakersville yard with his Milwaukee Geep. Don is the one who owns the Model T car I showed few months back that has the Milwaukee Road logo on the hood.

 

We can safely say Don is a Milwaukee Road fan.

 

The new branch line in front of the club got one step closer as Allan glued down the cork roadbed to hold them in place where the glue dried.

Club news

One man works while the other "officials" look on. Let's see... we have legal council and the safety director looking on as Burt adds ballast to the Blue Mains.  Once the far reaching stuff is done then the other guys can come in and do the track work and the installation of the buildings  to the port district.

 

The train club is loaded with a bunch a AIco-haulics!  I brought in a collection of Alco locomotives to see how they would work and lined them up for posterity. The real American Locomotive Company went out of business in the US back in 1969. I still like the looks of the PA models. What's that E unit doing here? 

 

Our track cleaning train moved up on notch to completion when I finished painting the track car that actually cleans track. Our 3rd loco for this club set is now in the paint shop as the 2nd one had too many mechanical problems like the motor burning out the chip and cracked gears.

 

Our new addition was added by Allan this week to give us another industry to the club's layout. This is right by the front door and Al plans to photograph the Spokane Valley from Mica Peak on a sunny day and use the Spokane Valley as his backdrop to the scenery. Stay tuned. Better than a coat rack!

Wenatchee Museum Layout, Train Disasters, and a Mountain Ghost Town

The Wenatchee Washington Museum features a layout profiling some of the history - and disasters - involving the railway and the industry of central Washington State.

Wenatchee was an important city for the Great Northern as a generator of produce traffic as the Apple Capital of the World and a key division point for their Northwest network. The city is located 100 miles east of Seattle and 170 miles west of Spokane.  Situated along the mighty Columbia River; to the west are the Cascade Mountains where severe grades had to be overcome by the Great Northern.
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The first attempt to cross the Cascade Mountain range was a 'switch back' system that used steam engines to 'see saw' their way back-and-forth, slowly, up and over the Cascade mountain range.  This crude approach was inexpensive to construct, but ultimately proved unsatisfactory.  A 2 mile tunnel with electric overhead was installed to eliminate the majority of the switchbacks and make the crossing of the range more efficient.   On the western end of this tunnel, the small stop of Wellington was created.

In 1910, well before auto emissions could be used as an excuse for every change in the weather, Mother Nature took out its fury on the intrusion of man into its domain.   At Wellington  (Later renamed Tye, and abandoned) where the snow was falling at a foot a day - and despite the best efforts of the train crews and their steam-powered rotary snow plows - two passenger trains became trapped at the top of the grade.  Unfortunately, when the avalanche came, it took out the town, the locomotives, cars, and the lives of 100 passengers and workers (this story is well documented in the excellent book "White Cascade" which is available on Amazon).

Following this disaster, the GN built the 8 mile Cascade tunnel to avoid the snow slides and severe grades. The Wenatchee Historical Society has a model to show what it was like 100 years ago.

 

An early steam engine makes its way past the old switch backs that were hundreds of feet in higher elevation than the new 2 mile Cascade Tunnel.  More elevation means a lot more snow to deal with in  the winter. Most of the trees were used to build the trestles and snow sheds so watch out!

 

On the opposite ( east ) end of the Cascade Tunnel was Cascade yard . It was not much of a yard but it had enough room for several sidings to hold trains waiting their turn to go west into the tunnel.

 

Here is where the snow slides hit at Wellington in February 1910. It snowed for several days at 1 foot of snow per hour soon the hillsides were ready to slide and into this tiny hamlet of civilization. Passenger cars, electric box motors, work cars, rotary plows, steam engines. Anything and everything including the hotel, crew quarters, etc.... Some of the passengers wanted to be backed into the tunnel but the officials said no...it would be uncomfortable (smoke inhalation)!  There is a summer road that goes to this spot as a State Park with relevant information for you to understand. The concrete snow sheds are still there.

 

Martin Creek tunnel was several miles west of Wellington and they needed to reduce altitude so many tunnels and bridges were needed to get lower into the valley. When I first saw this layout some 20 years ago I was impressed with the scenery and it encouraged me to do it as well.

 

19 years later the GN finished the 8 mile tunnel at great expense and here at the west portal (used by BNSF and Amtrak today ) we see the steam engine on the old right of way and the diesels coming out of the new 8 mile tunnel. You can drive near this spot and see for yourself.

The Wenatchee Museum is easy to find in the middle of downtown Wenatchee and I encourage you to see it for yourself.

What's new on the Evergreen Railroad?

Baldwins, that's what is new as few members bring in Baldwins for me to make something out of their smoking tendencies. Keith Wiles, a BNSF engineer, brought these beauties down to the club on Thursday along with his wife who celebrated her birthday with an ice cream cake with the members.  Congratulations Wanda!

Chad Geissler who was voted in as a permanent member last week had his CN steamer working past the Union Station at Cobbleton. Chad says he plans to turn it into a Southern Pacific steamer as that is his favorite road. I'm sure Chuck Heimerdinger will be his technical advisor on this project!

Look at this beautiful caboose that comes straight out of the box this way! The details are perfect along with a working safety light that needs to know which way its going through the DCC system. I suppose there is a tiny conductor in there doing paperwork as well!

Valleyford celebrates the S&IE Railroad that served it many years ago.

The little town of Valleyford located south of Spokane used to have railroad service some 60 years ago yet the town still remembers the good times.  They put on a show with the local town folks with memories on how they got on the train to go to the big city of Spokane back in 1940 at the cost of 35 cents.  They had a group of 4 kids doing music of the day and many were in costume for the event. We had 2 sessions with standing room only and it was fun.

I tried to keep my presentation on the Spokane & Inland Empire Railroad that had about 140 miles of track with overhead wires and it was the modern way to run a railroad. They ran about 6 passenger trains a day as well as several freight trains that served the Palouse Empire including Moscow, Idaho and Colfax, Washington. I showed my photo CD collection along with maps and models.

Noted historian Charlie Mutchler followed up on the finer details of why they built it and how they did it. We had German officials in 1908 studying the line shown in the photo on the table to see what they could bring back to do it in the Fatherland. It was an enjoyable day for everyone including my wife who sat in on the first presentation, and she is not a railfan!

Show time for the Spokane & Inland Empire Railroad.

I was asked to make a presentation to the Valleyford Historical Society tomorrow ( Saturday May 4th ) at 11 am and again at 1 pm.  I will do the history of the line that ran from downtown Spokane to Moscow and Colfax, Washington from the turn of the century to around 1960. The line was electrified even through the Great Northern era. 

I will have photos, models and a CD photo presentation with my collection that I acquired many years ago. It's happening at the Valleyford Coffee Shop on Old Palouse Highway 12212 E. Palouse Hy, which is about 1.5 miles from Highway 27 ( take Pines Road to Old Palouse Hy - go west )

We both might learn something about Old Spokane and what made it grow in the early days.