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.

 

 

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

 

 

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

50s & 60s Northwest Railfanning on the ERM www.youtube.com This one is for you Bill In the 1950's and 1960's, Spokane was served by the Northern Pacific, Great Northern, Spokane Portland & Seattle, Union Pacific, Milwaukee ...

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.

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?

 

 

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!

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

Lucky Larry takes a shot at some equipment of hisI

 

 

Lucky is a good name for Larry as he spent 20 plus years in the U.S. Army blowing stuff up. Now he is

shooting stuff up with his camera at the Evergreen club. He brags that he still has all his fingers...and arms.

 

I got introduced to his MOW equipment that ran on its own but they may become flat car loads as they run

too slow for the mainline.

 

Another favorite of Larry is this Weyerhauser 3 truck Shay that many roamed the backwoods in the

Northwest and many other places where work had to be done to move stuff.

 

This model had a piston that pushed a mechanism that ran a crankshaft that moves the wheels.

Lots of monkey motion to make it work.

 

This one could be considered a V-2 job that worked a shaft that moves the wheels as well.'These are

the days before gas or diesel power. It was heating up water to make steam to make pressure.

 

Finally this little beauty I had since the Great Northern was an active company and these souvenir

was not just a cute cardboard model but a useful product that most people had a need for.

 

Matches! So I put it on Ebay a few nights ago starting at $10.00 and it went quickly for Buy It Now for

$50.00. Who knew?

Evergreen Faceoff on the SP&S!

 

The SP&S had only one E unit numbered #750, so how do we have 2 SP&S E-7s numbered the same

in the same photo? That's the conflict Steve Weso brings the the Evergreen club with his two paint versions

depending on the time line. Oh the tangled web we weave!

 

Amtrak makes a stop at the major station of Cobbleton located at the back of the Evergreen empire.

 

This early articulated Great Northern steam engine is in need of a good bath of grimy black but perhaps

the owner of the loco likes the bright color of green. Its working a string of iron ore hoppers in the wilds of

Wisconsin or Minnesota.

 

That SP&S #750 is now on the road and meets up with a younger brother E-8 in Union Pacific yellow.

The real ones would have been on opposite sides of the Columbia in the 1960s and sometimes in the

confines of downtown Spokane at Union Station and GN station that were 100 yards apart.

 

One of those interloper eastern railroads called Baltimore and Ohio showed up in the form of 3 F units

(baby brothers to the E units mentioned) They must have trackage rights on the Evergreen?

 

Later in the evening Scotty Smith brought in  3 unit UP passenger train to round out the cab units

for the day's activities.

What on earth is Will W. up to now???

With space goggles on Will Windom is intent on seeing what he is doing at Bakersville.

 

New automatic switch machines were installed and they needed to be painted so Will volunteered

be to the go too guy. It is also a reminder that nothing gets done on the layout unless someone

steps up to the plate to make it happen. Its been said that we have 30,000 dollars invested in this layout

but also is true is we have about 30,000 hours of effort by the members as well.

 

Jim Bowden brought in his new addition to his collection 4 brand new GP-9s and are they beauties!

It's nice to see GN show up as NP and SP&S guys seem to be in the majority.

 

That's Jim's GN caboose following along behind a fairly long freight train with trolley customers looking on.

 

He followed up with running a 4 unit set of NP FTs, the original steam engine killers on the real

railroad. No more coal or frequent water stops and a whole lot cleaner and quieter for the crews.

 

Greg Mercier kept up some eastern representation with Maine Central freight units pulling a typical

1950s era freight train with eastern cars in tow.

 

The peaceful co-existence was shattered with the arrival of Steve Weso's modern BN train with 2

lease units in attendance. I guess Gonzaga wasn't playing basketball on Tuesday afternoon?