Inside a caboose

Yes, a real caboose.  White River Lumber Company 001.  It was built at Enumclaw in 1945 and restored to its original appearance here at the Northwest Railway Museum by Dale C., Martin N., Rich W., Dick H., and others more than 10 years ago.  The effort earned an award from the King County Historic Preservation Program.

Beginning Friday, October 11, 2019 visitors to the Train Shed exhibit building will be able to visit inside caboose 001.  New steps and LED lighting are making this possible, and opening this new exhibit was encouraged by visitor feedback asking for the opportunity to go inside a caboose.

White River Lumber 001 is pretty spartan, as were most cabooses.  Its plain interior reflects the short trips it was used on from Enumclaw into the forest and back again.  In the closing days of WW II it may have traveled as far as Mt Rainier National Park, but always returned home the same day.

Notably, 001 was built during the war at Enumclaw.  This was because the war time ration board denied White River permission to purchase a new caboose.  Yet a caboose was required on log trains with ten or more cars.  So the logging company managers tasked their workers with building a caboose.  It is not a prime example of the fine art of car building, but it is an example of the thoughtful and utilitarian improvisation that was common in logging camps throughout the Northwest.  

Come and visit caboose 001 Thursday - Sunday from 11:00 am - 4:00 pm through the end of October.  Members are free.  Admission is included with all regular train tickets; trains depart Snoqualmie on Saturdays and Sundays 11:00 am, 12:30 pm, and 3 pm.  A la carte visitation is $10 for adults and $5 for children.

Train Shed grand opening

September 17, 2011 was a momentous occasion for the 54-year-old Northwest Railway Museum. That occasion was the grand opening of the Train Shed exhibit and collection storage building, a project 54 years in the making. 137 invited guests joined together to hear live music, inspirational speeches, and to see the rehabilitated White River Lumber Company locomotive 1 and caboose 001 roll into the building. Hundreds of donors and over $4.3 million were required to achieve completion.

Last year the Museum celebrated the completion of the structure with a dedication ceremony. That empty building was an achievement in its own right but this year’s completion of all the railway track now allows the structure to be fully utilized for its primary purpose: protecting the most representative and vulnerable objects from the outdoor environment. It will also be available for limited public access.

Guests of all ages were transported to and from the Train Shed ceremony by train and while enroute Snoqualmie Postmaster Bud canceled a commemorative postcard. The Cornucopia Concert Band performed a variety of brass band standards throughout the evening and light refreshments were served from track two platform.

Mayor Matt Larson spoke of the importance of vision in achieving an important goal and praised the Museum for its many recent successes. 4Culture Executive Director Jim Kelly spoke of the tenacity and creativity evident in finding a way to build the Train Shed. (4Culture is the King County Cultural Development Authority and was a major supporter of the Train Shed design and construction.) Museum Board of Trustees Vice President Dennis Snook talked about achievement, planning and continued development. Museum Executive Director Richard Anderson spoke of eleven years of effort to plan, fund and construct the Train Shed, and of the interesting parallels between Snoqualmie’s beginnings as a railroad town and its revitalization efforts today led in part by a railroad museum. Other dignitaries attended to celebrate the event including King County Councilmember Kathy Lambert and City of Snoqualmie Councilmember Bob Jeans.

Opening the Train Shed for collections use and limited public access is the latest and greatest of the Museum’s achievements but it is hardly the last. Now work will continue on completing facilities for the museum campus including restrooms, additional parking, and program office space. Efforts will also increasingly focus on renewed and expanded collection care on the museum’s large collection of coaches, freight cars and locomotives.

Photographs:

(top left) Caboose 001 and locomotive 1 are pushed in on track three
(top right) Snoqualmie Postmaster Bud cancels a commemorative postcard
(middle left) Cornucopia Band performs live during the ceremony
(lower left) locomotive 1 and caboose 001 wait outside for their call
(lower right) native plants adorn the perimeter gardens at the Train Shed

Weyerhaeuser Timber Company locomotive 1

The White River Branch was a Weyerhaeuser operation near Enumclaw in east King County, Washington. They had a logging railroad that stretched to the outer reaches of Mount Rainier National Park, and a spur line that connected with the Northern Pacific Railway and Milwaukee Road.

In 1951 "a great yellow beast" (as described in the company’s newsletter) arrived to replace a steam locomotive and was soon working in the woods. Service on the logging railroad was short-lived because Weyerhaeuser converted to trucks just a few years later. Yet #1 soldiered on pulling trains to interchange with the Northern Pacific and Milwaukee lines for close to another two decades. (For more on the history, visit the September 28, 2010 blog post.)

The White River Branch's #1 received extensive rehabilitation in 2009 & 2010 funded in part by a grant from the National Railway Historical Association. Work included replacement of worn upper pistons and rings, car body repairs, electrical work, replacement of damaged glass, and priming and painting. Owing to a particularly wet and cool fall, winter and spring, lettering of the locomotive was delayed until summer 2011.

Armed with accurate tracings made off the remnants of the original lettering, volunteer Rich W. scanned and smoothed the lettering. He traced it out and “printed” it on a vinyl cutter to create a paint mask. The mask was applied to the locomotive using low-tack release paper and the lettering was painted out. When the lettering mask was removed, the crisp new lettering remained. This technique is similar to how the original lettering was applied in 1951 to this model H12-44 at Fairbanks Morse in Beloit, Wisconsin. While today a similar project would probably be lettered with vinyl, this traditional technique should outperform even the best vinyl. And it is historically accurate too!

Later this month, locomotive 1 will be moved into its permanent new home inside the Northwest Railway Museum's Train Shed in Snoqualmie, Washington. There, this class A rehabilitation effort will be protected from the Northwest's winter rains and will be part of an exhibit about logging by rail.

Photos:

(Top) Locomotive 1 with Weyerhaeuser's traditional W/T logo as applied in 1951. This new lettering was applied at the Museum's CRC in 2011.

(Middle) The "T" in the Weyerhaeuser W/T logo is evident under the paint mask as the three layers of paint that make up the logo are applied.

(Bottom) The eight and six inch lettering on the long hood first appears as an outline as the lettering mask is exposed just prior to applying black paint.

Old project, new project

Fall 2010 was an eventful season inside the Museum’s Conservation and Restoration Center. The center of attention has been a first generation diesel-electric locomotive with ties to the local forest industry and the results are spectacular! Funded with a grant from the National Railroad Historical Society, private donors and a Boeing Company matching grant, the project is wrapping up this month.

Earlier this year, the Museum began rehabilitation work in earnest on locomotive 1, a Fairbanks-Morse model H12-44 from Enumclaw’s White River Lumber division of Weyerhaeuser. Built in 1951, the locomotive has an opposed piston diesel common in the marine sector, but unique in the railroad industry. When built, the locomotive was remarkable for delivering an incredible 1,200 horsepower with just a six cylinder/twelve piston diesel.

Rehabilitation work has included car body repairs, new piston rings, new electric traction motor brushes, auxiliary generator repairs, surface preparation, new windows as required, and painting. Over 1,800 hours of effort has been invested in the project and the locomotive was moved out of the CRC last week. The lettering has not yet been applied; warmer weather will facilitate that final visual aspect of the project. Some of the work has been highlighted in Museum blog posts here and here.

Substantial completion of locomotive 1 also leads to a new beginning: chapel car 5 “Messenger of Peace” was moved into the CRC to begin an extensive rehabilitation. Earlier this year, many museum supporters participating in the Partners in Preservation initiative of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express by voting for their favorite project. Those efforts resulted in a $50,000 award in support of chapel car 5. Other support includes the Save America’s Treasures award, the Capital Projects Fund for Washington’s Heritage, 4Culture and individual and corporate donors.

Chapel car 5 is listed on the National Register of Historic Places under National criteria acknowledging it as one of the most historically significant artifacts in the Museum’s collection. Rehabilitation work will include repairs to the car’s frame, especially to deteriorated sections of side sill. Work will also include rehabilitation of the exterior cladding, reconstruction of the interior living quarters, restoration of the sanctuary, and restoration of the end platforms. Project completion is expected in two years.

So the end of one project is the beginning of another.



Photos:

Top - Locomotive 1 on the CRC lead after repainting.

Second - Locomotive 1 and just a few of the dozens of people involved in its rehabilitation. Top, left to right, Allan W., Bob M., Clark Mc., Hugh H., Jon B., Roger S., & Russ S.

Third - Pettibone Speedswing moves the chapel car into the CRC.

Bottom - Project manager Clark Mc. begins assessing chapel car 5 shortly after it arrived in the CRC.

Video - images of the locomotive 1 moving out of the CRC and the chapel car moving in.

Weyerhaeuser Timber locomotive 1 rehabilitation

Weyerhaeuser is perhaps the best-known forest products company in the Northwest and has a long and colorful association with railroads. It was formed in 1900 shortly after Fredrick Weyerhaeuser purchased nearly 1 million acres of forestland from the Great Northern Railway’s James J. Hill (athough technically Northern Pacific Railway land). By 1903, Weyerhaeuser had over 1.5 million acres of land and would soon become a dominant industry force.

In the coming decades Weyerhaeuser got involved in many of the most successful forest product operations in the Northwest including the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company and the White River Lumber Company, two of the most significant forest industry operations in King County.

White River Lumber was based at Enumclaw, Washington until its operations wound down in the early 21st Century. In its earlier years, logging was conducted by rail. A series of railroad spurs was built into the woods and radiated from Enumclaw. Steam locomotives dominated these lines until the summer of 1951 when a brand new locomotive arrived – a Fairbanks Morse H12-44 diesel electric locomotive. This modern locomotive was designed around the famous FM opposed-piston D38 1/8 marine diesel engine. This workhorse was well-built by standards of the day but its unusual diesel engine design was poorly understood by the railroad industry and did not become widely popular.

White River’s Fairbanks Morse locomotive carried the number 1 and for nearly three years operated on the logging railroads radiating from Enumclaw. (For a period of time, it also operated with White River caboose 001, also in the Museum’s collection.) However by 1954, logging operations had transitioned to trucks and the locomotive 1 was relegated to the short branch line connecting the mill with railroad interchanges on the Northern Pacific Railway and the Milwaukee Road. Later, it was transferred to Weyerhaeuser’s operation at Vail, and still later was sold for use as an industry switcher.

Locomotive 1 was acquired by the Northwest Railway Museum in the 1980s. It is complete and has remained in service for nearly 60 years. It saw a number of repairs and minor modifications but remains largely “original.” Notwithstanding, 59 years of service exacts a toll and locomotive 1 was in need of attention.

Beginning in November 2009, locomotive 1 has been undergoing a major rehabilitation in preparation for exhibition in the new Train Shed exhibit building and to allow its continued use on the interpretive railway. Work has included electric traction motor cleaning and brush replacement (see 18 November 2009 blog post), replacement of the piston rings in the upper pistons (to be detailed in an upcoming blog post), steel carbody repairs, and extensive preparation for repainting. Aided by a grant from the National Railway Historical Society (“NRHS”) the work has been performed in the Conservation and Restoration Center by a combination of volunteers and contractors. The project is expected to wrap up later in 2010 and is valued at nearly $25,000.

Carbody: Fairbanks Morse built a very robust carbody but steel plus water still equals rust. So badly deteriorated steel sheeting along the side of the battery boxes was cut out and replaced. A plasma cutter was used to remove the rusted panels and a Metal Inert Gas (“MIG”) electric welder was used to replace them with new. Meanwhile, a metal skirting – part of the Raymond Lowey-designed streamlining – was cleaned and primed for reattachment. New metal studs were cut and welded to the side of the locomotive and the skirting was in turn welded to the studs. Several broken and cracked welds found elsewhere on the carbody were also repaired.

Paint preparation: At some point in the locomotive’s past, two incompatible paints were applied. As a consequence, at 59 years of age, paint was peeling off in large sheets. Unfortunately, the only effective way to address coating failure is to remove the failed coatings. Abrasive blasting is often used to remove old paint from steel but it can be very hard on old locomotives. Grit can get into bearings and the force of the blasting can damage the steel panels. So the Museum used a more labor intensive but less damaging method called needle scaling. A needle scaler has a set of metal pins that are fired at paint or rust and the concussion causes the foreign material to break off and separate from the steel. A common application has also been to remove scale from the inside of a boiler. After the majority of the paint and rust has been removed in this manner, a sander is used for final surface preparation. Then it is primed with a polyurethane primer.

After the entire locomotive is prepared, it will be painted with a high gloss industrial polyurethane coating. It will be placed on exhibit in the new Train Shed exhibit building in 2011.