The Northwest Railway Museum’s practice takes historical past buffs and curious youngsters from North Bend to Snoqualmie.
The Northwest Railway Museum’s shining star was as soon as a failed venture. The Seattle, Lake Shore, and Jap Railway (SLS&E) fell in need of its mission to hyperlink Seattle and Spokane, puttering to a cease on the brilliant crimson North Bend station. However the rail line nonetheless grew to become a necessary thoroughfare for passengers and freight beginning in 1890. Right this moment it has a brand new life: an immersive step again to the times lengthy earlier than I-90 backups and craft breweries.
“Oh boy, the practice is coming!” a toddler shrieks. We’re in modern-day North Bend, the place the Northwest Railway Museum is a crimson practice station modeled after the unique. It stands watch over the city’s metal tracks, going through Scott’s Dairy Freeze and towering Mount Si. Nowadays the practice’s objective is scenic rides; a two-hour tour for $28 per grownup, departing from North Bend or Snoqualmie.
The orange engine inches ahead, letting out whistle blasts saying its triumphant return to the terminus of its 5.5-mile journey. I could possibly be trying on the pages of a storybook as a bearded conductor in striped overalls waves to the passengers awaiting pickup.
On board, every coach automotive provides a special ambiance. In a single, mint inexperienced lounge chairs are on high of black and white tiles (again in vogue as of late), whereas burgundy velvet benches paying homage to church pews sit underneath home windows of coloured glass in one other. There are easy picket benches within the furthest.
The interiors—save one automotive—are all unique. Designed by Barney and Smith Automobile Firm within the early 1900s, their historic resume is obvious within the rips and uncovered foam. The Northwest Railway Museum is within the midst of a whole restoration of that storied upholstery, having mohair woven and dyed within the Carolinas and tapping an area artisan to reupholster the seats. The venture isn’t a small one; the fee to revive only one coach is available in properly over $100,000.
The Snoqualmie depot is a reminder of one other time, when rail was the one option to journey.
As we pull out of the North Bend station, restaurant patrons on the close by institutions wave and scramble to seek out telephones to {photograph} the passing spectacle. We have been laborious to overlook: The experience resembles a fairground kiddie coaster because it jostles up to the mark. I rapidly notice the benefit of the earplugs provided on the ticket window because the 130-year-old mechanisms creak and clang down the tracks, steam wafting by the window.
That steam powered us towards the experience’s marquee sights, together with the scenic South Fork of the Snoqualmie River valley, quaint downtown Snoqualmie and its historic depot, and meadows that give option to Cascade peaks. Simply previous Snoqualmie Falls (although the tracks are too excessive to supply an excellent view of it), the practice reverses course again towards North Bend.
There is a pit cease on the Railway Historical past Campus, the place I comply with dozens of households—it is a kid-friendly expertise—and history-hungry teams right into a warehouse stocked with shows and full-size practice vehicles. The entire observe and dealing practice are technically a part of the Northwest Railway Museum, however this half appears like a museum.
Not the whole lot within the museum strikes; the Railway Historical past Campus is filled with displays.
A photograph hunt and toy trains occupies kids whereas shows showcase commercials, refrigerated vehicles, and outfitted cabooses from the practice’s heyday. However it’s not solely concerning the Snoqualmie Valley’s SLS&E line: Panels define the lethal Wellington Catastrophe close to Stevens Go, and a automotive from the Puget Sound Electrical Railway between Seattle and Tacoma boasted coastal transport of yore.
Settled again into the plush seats after our academic cease, it is easy to think about boarding the coach in early-1900s North Bend, jostling on a creaky four-hour experience towards the quickly rising huge metropolis of Seattle. The railroad modified transport for the area, placing Woodinville, Issaquah, and Snoqualmie on the map for vacationers—in addition to hop pickers commuting to fields all through the Puget Sound area. In a world with out Amazon, catalog-ordered items from East coast factories confirmed up at native practice depots.
Now, the Northwest Railway Museum, with its historic trains, exhibit corridor, and depot type an immersive style of days previous. In the course of the holidays, themed excursions embody a trick-or-treat Halloween practice, the Yuletide Categorical (with Santa on the practice), and the Santa Restricted (with an extended cease that features refreshments).
There is a visceral thrill to placing a withstand the opalescent glass and watching workers shovel wooden into the engine’s firebox. As an alternative of visitors jams, passengers expertise rocking facet to facet with the practice’s motion. You merely don’t get that have studying panels in a historical past museum.
