Saturday night at the Evergreen Railroad

Wanting more social interaction with members and family the Evergreen Club thought that having run nights on random Saturday evening with pizza being served would be a benefit for club activities. Here we have Alco C-424's from the SP&S running over the Beaver Canyon Bridge.

 Steve Welton's high horsepower units waits for a train to pass before entering the main.

The new Titanic Ice Company had a grade crossing installed over the tracks and it is so new it had not received the weathered look yet.  I'll get my best crew on it right away!

 The SP&S Alcos pass that very spot near the Ice Company as it passes our one and only farm.

Speaking of Alcos, John Smith had his SP PA's in for a spin as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Detailing the Evergreen RR

Instead of the plain Jane corner on the second section of our layout, conversations were talking about what could we do to these corners. We elevated the hillside about 2 inches with our Oatmeal scenery stuff, added ground colors and finally trees. Not bad for a bunch of kids.

Allan came up with an idea to add a touch of a road at the edge of the layout, but I was aprensive. When I finally saw how it was going to look I changed my mind. The edge of the earth implies there is more scenery beyond the layout edge.

Jim Bowden has been working on the lighting of the structures in the mill area. Just because we have lights don't mean that anyone is home!

Traffic Jam

I was minding my own business, not trespassing or anything when I noticed a few trains roaming around the west end of Yardley, Washington. My original intent was to shoot the train further away but it backed down to its current location. The yard that the train is on to the upper left was the original line the Northern Pacific used back in 1880s. The main line is now the one at the lower right where the containers are.

 With my telephoto we see the new Havana Street overpass going in. It has been almost 2 years and it is not opened yet.One of our members at Evergreen RR was told that the delay is from the bridge sinking almost 6 inches! Yikes! I wonder if it  was a shovel ready job?

Back in business!

My computer was in the shop for almost 2 weeks and I am back at the keyboard!

Allan took my camera the other day and played with the telephoto to get this long view of my little 4-4-0 Northern Pacific crossing Kyle Canyon. Roy Wyatts's son built this bridge for us and it seems right that we name it after him. I could be talked out of it!

Lloyd showed up on Thursday and ran his Union Pacific Gas Turbine pulling one of 4 coal trains he now has. Allan's work on  the ice house looks good from any angle.

We're not in Kansas anymore Dorothy ( not with those mountains )as UP power passes a Kansas City Southern caboose owned by Steve Welton.

Just to prove we are not narrow focused with just northwest railroads, Steve has 3 EMD's making the rounds. Must be the first time on the rails as there is no indication that they ever turned a wheel. Too clean!

Another view of Lloyds' UP Gas Turbine making its way up a stiff grade to get to the tunnel in the front of the layout. I have a Gas Turbine as well but mine has sound that all the members love to hear it run!

Rick keeps chipping away at the lumber mill and Allan added the signs that I made for it through my Signal Signs process.

We are now officially international now that a Canadian industry has been identified on our layout.

There's that pesky little steam engine we saw on the first e-mail and I thought this angle is a bit different than other we have used.

The smoke in Photo shopped in to give it a bit of life.

This shot was taken on Sunday when we had our visitor from England and he was a Milwaukee Road and Northern Pacific modeler! Ah, the good old days! Maybe that's why we do model railroading to keep the memories alive?

 

 

Visitor form England gets a real show!

We had a terrific turnout for our impromptu run date for our friend from England named Neil Horton. He is a veterinarian over in the mother land but loves Northwest Railroads after seeing a copy of a Trains magazine many years ago. His favorites are Northern Pacific and Milwaukee Road and we did not fail him!

I brought one of my Little Joe electrics and photographed it in the front part of the layout.

If we are going to let in England visitors we may as well let Allan run his Canadian National passenger train to run with the US stuff. Hey, we are almost neighbors!

 Jim had his brand new SD45 NP units pulling a freight and they ran beautiful.

This could be Montana as the NP & Milwaukee ran about 100 miles next to each other near Missoula, Drummond, Clinton, St Regis, Deer Lodge, and Butte.

 

Ready to get a roll on is Jim's new NP FT 4 unit set. This model was EMD's answer to end the era of the steam engine.

The new ice station make a good backdrop for a passing train.

Old and new Northern Pacific power is captured in this shot as with real life branch lines and industries got the cast offs from the parent road. I still think my little 4-4-0 steamer is cuter than Jimmy's new diesels!

Playing favorites? You bet! Little Joe gets a helping hand with a GE U-boat in transit, probably going to get fixed or scrapped. I should have put up the pantagraphs for the photos.

Union Pacific...ship and travel everywhere on the Evergreen RR

Our buddy Steve Welton was running trains today at the club when I was heading for the Post Office so I stopped by to see what he was up too.

Steve had two sets of trains running and they were both Union Pacific! One coal train and the other general freight. No matter how good your equipment is I think they look better when running through good looking scenery. I hope you agree! The natural light coming through the windows adds a different hue.

The back side of the layout has this wide shot with the north end of Blue main yard in the foreground.  The caboose is now a relic of another day.

 This view is more to what us railfans see when we are out on the hunt looking for stuff to photograph. Nowadays,I do more shooting at the club than I do on the mainlines.

Club Pizza Party

Normally we have open house events to show off our layout to the public. But this time we decided to have a Pizza party just for the members and their wives and family members. We had a good turnout with Pizza from Rocky Rococo's in downtown Spokane.   Steve and Rick volunteered to pick it up but no one thought of the problem with parking because of Lilac parade was being held the same night! Yikes!  Tonight's theme was STEAM era!

John Smith was running a Santa Fe Northern (4-8-4) past Mount Whitney.

Brock brought in his GN steam engine and pulled 6 GN reefers that Mike baker left behind for a little weathering project.

A guy named Glen Krause showed up (he says he's a member in long standing) but we are going to check on his records. He brought in 3 locos of one was the UP engine to the left, next to my brass GN model.

The interloper diesel in the background was not removed by the owner. Woops, that was me!

I told you that Glen Krause showed up and here is proof! We did a test of DNA on his red hair and it proved to be him!

Welcome back Glen.  Get that camera vertical!

My faithful UP Big Boy made it around the layout without fail pulling 16 or so ice reefers. The real ones pulled 100 plus cars up the Sherman Hill in Wyoming back in the day from 1941 to 1958.

The diesels stayed in the barn while the steamers made the rounds. It gave up a theme for the night and our next Pizza party will be with period diesels with a time line in mind. The engine facilities has the look of Hillyard doesn't it?

Brock's train waits at Bakersville before making it up the grade. Maybe the engineer is taking a lunch break?

More Spokane & Inland Empire Railroad

The Rock Creek trestle south of Spokane on the old Spokane & Inland Empire Railroad.

 

See old people used to do crazy things when they were young as well!  Location is the Holiday Inn Express on North Division in Spokane.

 

Spokane "celebrated getting rid of those old noisy trolleys in favor of those modern "clean" buses in 1936.

I was minding my own business.....

When I noticed  a few of the guys laying on the floor!   They were wiring stuff and having a great time!                                  

        

 

Rick seemed happy by himself painting panels that will be used to hold the controllers along the side of the layout.  Burt stayed above the layout painting water!

        

The really big news was the completion of a kit bashed Broadway Limited UP engine that got a makeover to look like a Canadian National Bullet nose Betty Allan did as much as he could to represent the premiere 4-8-4 that rules the rails up north in the late 40's and 50s.. Very nice job Allan. N scale Jon painted it for him. He gets these e-mails so I can't ignore him on this project.

 

Looks pretty and ran very well.

 

Me? I busied myself with a fleet of work train box cars for the Spokane International.  I got the cars for $2.00 each and now making them into something neat.

 

 

 

You can tell it's Spring!

After May 1st you can take a photo of a train on the Irvin Bridge in the Spokane Valley from the north side. I was able to spot the headlight in time to get to the bridge for this shot. See, trains can be pretty!

Yep, it's is Spring all right and plenty of snow and rainwater to prove it. This is the falls in downtown Spokane and it is almost at flood stage here. Expo 74 was held at the location back in......1974. There was a covered canvas on the teepee netting but it tore off in the wind. Now Spiderman lives here.

Looking north is the other half of the river and it is moving fast. The city was called Spokane Falls in the early days and now you know why.