Guess Who's Back in Town

No, not Blue’s Clues or the Smurfs, but you’re getting warmer. He is big and blue.
That’s right. Thomas the Tank Engine, the No. 1, the cheeky little fellow with a heart of gold and a propensity for trouble is making his way to Snoqualmie. Thomas and Sir Topham Hatt will be welcoming 16,000 children and their adults to the Northwest Railway Museum this summer during Day Out With Thomas, The Celebration Tour. This isn’t just any old visit; this is a celebration of Thomas’ 65th birthday!

July 9 – 11 and 16 – 18 mark Thomas’ ninth visit to the Museum. Much like a small town preparing for the arrival of the circus, the Snoqualmie Depot is all abuzz with activity. Tents will soon sprout on the grounds of the Snoqualmie Depot. Those summertime scents of hot dogs and caramel corn will be in the air. Pizza, lattes and root beer will round out the offerings on the grounds. Music will be playing, balloons will loosen their strings and fly up into the sky and Thomas will puff back and forth between the Snoqualmie Depot and Snoqualmie Falls, carrying his cargo of happy children and satisfied parents.

New this year, we welcome the Sunset Valley Railroad, a live steam, G-scale garden railway modeling group to our event. And, live on our stage for the first time, Casper Babypants and Brian Vogel will be performing for your delight. They join long-time favorites, Nancy Stewart and Eric Ode. Don’t miss the HO-scale model train layout, the motor car rides, the steam engine cab tour or Clay Martin’s puppet theatre.

If it sounds like we are looking forward to it, you’re right, we are! You won’t want to miss it! Tickets are more than half sold out, so don’t delay. Visit the Snoqualmie Depot Bookstore and get your tickets today or purchase through TicketWeb.

Landslide!

The Northwest Railway Museum has a train load of experience managing natural disaster recovery operations. The Museum has successfully recovered from major floods, moderate earthquakes, hurricane-force wind storms, and even landslides.

The Museum applied its experience again this week with a minor landslide at Snoqualmie Falls. Late on Monday, 3 May 2010, about 150 cubic yards of mud and rock and a dozen trees came down the hillside near bridge 31.3. The largest of the trees landed on a gondola car the Museum uses as an end of track bumper. This presented a few minor challenges for School Train scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and a concern for the success of Mother’s Day weekend trains.

The track on both sides of bridge 31.3 sits on a ledge cut into the hillside by 19th Century railroad builders 300 feet above the Snoqualmie River. Slides are inevitable and safely collecting and disposing of debris can be difficult. For this type of challenge where safety and critical timelines are factors, the Museum sometimes turns to contractors.

Railworks is based in Chehalis and is the largest rail contractor in the region. They were involved with the Museum’s 2009 flood recovery and have several hyrail excavators (hyrails are devices that allow non-rail vehicles to travel on railroad tracks). Railworks sent a hyrail excavator and hyrail dump truck and they arrived on site on Thursday. The machines immediately went to work clearing debris.

Also participating was Clayton Littlejohn from North Fork Enterprises. Littlejohn is an expert logger from a family of loggers and the most experienced person in our community for untangling a timber mess. He made quick order of the trees, some more than three feet in diameter. Loggers are an increasingly rare breed in the Northwest as business focus continues to shift away from forestry. The Museum has a close tie to logging - railroads not only made logging viable, but profitable. The railroad allowed Snoqualmie to develop as a successful Weyerhaeuser community and when the mill closed, the railroad left.

In the tight confines of the ledge that the railroad sits on, much of the slide debris had to be removed from the site. Thom Weber of Mt. Si Quarry agreed to accept mud and disposed of 30 tons of material. Clayton Littlejohn of North Fork Enterprises accepted all the woody debris and ground it up for use as hog fuel.

This section of rail line was originally constructed in 1889 and after this minor repair is again ready for service. It will continue to captivate visitors with panoramic views of the valley below and help educate about the challenges 19th Century railroad builders faced when they reached the mountains.

Depot restrooms dedicated

It’s official: the brand new Snoqualmie Depot public restrooms have been dedicated. A successful potty party held on May 1st culminated in dignitaries cutting a ribbon of toilet paper to officially open the restrooms. Participating were (left to right) Snoqualmie Mayor Matt Larson, Museum President Susan Hankins, King County Council Member Kathy Lambert, Snoqualmie Councilmember Bob Jeans, and Museum Executive Director Richard Anderson.

Those in attendance each received a small package of, well, toiletries. Then everyone enjoyed cheesecake (you can make your own jokes ‘bout that!) and checked out the new facilities. Snoqualmie's Mayor and the Museum's Executive Director also took an opportunity to promote the chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace project and its involvement in the Partners In Preservation funding competition.

Notables attending the event included Mr. Bill Collins who in 1979 designed and supervised the construction of the original Snoqualmie Depot restrooms. Bill noted that funding the 1979 restroom construction was difficult, but he obviously did a great job because his design lasted 31 years, an astounding feat for any public restroom.

The new restrooms are located in the Museum's 1890-built Snoqualmie Depot and were funded by a City of Snoqualmie Lodging Tax grant. The reconstruction included new double sided exterior stairs at the east end of the depot, and other improvements to provide ADA access to the new restrooms. Additional information appeared in an article entitled Now serving appeared in April when the restrooms first opened.

Project open houses at two King Street stations

With just 10 voting days left in the Partners In Preservation Seattle Initiative funding competition, the region’s two King Street Stations held a joint open house to highlight their projects. Seattle’s King Street Station (owned by the City of Seattle and managed by the Seattle Department of Transportation or "SDOT") highlighted the staircase that extends from the King Street entrance to Jackson Street. Snoqualmie’s King Street Station (owned by the Northwest Railway Museum) highlighted chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace. Through the kindness of SDOT, chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace was also highlighted at Seattle's King Street Station. You can vote every day at http://www.Partnersinpreservation.org/

Partners In Preservation is a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. American Express has provided $1 million in funding to support historic preservation projects in the Puget Sound region. 25 project finalists are competing for a share of the funding; the top vote-getter is guaranteed full funding. Several other projects will be selected by a National Trust committee and will also receive funding.

On Sunday, May 2, 2010, the Northwest Railway Museum was invited to set up a modest display about the chapel car at Seattle’s King Street Station. There, the City of Seattle’s Department of Transportation was also highlighting their King Street station project. At the same time, Snoqualmie’s King Street Station continued an open house for chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace.

Project Manager Trevina Wang described the King Street Station project to Spike:



For the Northwest Railway Museum, funding for the chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace will provide full funding and allow the project to proceed through to completion. Messenger of Peace has already confirmed $356,000 in funding, $180,000 of which came from a Save America’s Treasures award last December.

You can vote once a day until May 12 for the chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace or any of the other 24 worthy projects at http://www.partnersinpreservation.org/ Naturally, Spike encourages you to vote for Messenger of Peace!

Chapel car's travels

{Please remember to vote for the chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace today and every day until May 12 at http://www.PartnersInPreservation.org/}

Chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace traveled the country for 50 years. Beginning in 1898 with its dedication at Rochester, New York, car 5 brought hope, enlightenment, and religion to hundreds of communities. Some visits were short and others were longer but by length of service the greatest impact was in the Pacific Northwest. From the first visit to Pasco, WA in August 1915 to retirement at south Everett in the summer of 1948, the chapel car spent nearly 33 years in Washington and Oregon. It also made brief visits to Idaho and California.

The Messenger of Peace’s early years in Washington were widespread and interesting. From research conducted by Norman and Wilma Taylor, we have learned a few colorful details about early visits to a variety of communities:

Car 5 visited Spokane in April 1916 where Pastor Thomas R. Gale described the church as “nearly dead, a hard proposition.”

A month long visit to Deer Park began on May 21, 1916 where the Reverend Gale provided evangelistic services and helped build a church building. This community on the Great Northern Railway was home to more than a dozen saw mills and was on what was Daniel Corbin's Spokane Falls and Northern Railway.

The remote logging communities of Wilburton and Mid Lakes received three weeks of attention from the Messenger of Peace in November and December 1916. These communities were on the Northern Pacific Railway’s belt line along the west shore of Lake Washington that until recently carried the Spirit of Washington dinner train, and fuselage sections for 737-900 aircraft unable to clear close clearances in Renton. Today, both settlements are a part of Bellevue and are anything but remote.

The bustling metropolis of Renton was another stop for car 5 in late 1916 where Reverend Gale described, “a mining camp [with] deplorable religious conditions.” Coal mines were the core of Renton’s economy in that era and churches were not plentiful.

In January 1917 the chapel car visited Issaquah for 6 weeks during a dreadfully difficult time for the community. The alien property custodians had also just arrived in town to seize what was left of a German-backed chemical plant. Adding to that was a layoff at the local Superior Coal mine. Messenger of Peace soldiered on to revive not only the Baptist church but the Methodists as well.

By March the car moved on to North Bend to help the First Baptist Church of North Bend, which continues today at the North Bend Community Church. Hear what Pastor Pete Battjes had to say on a recent visit to the Snoqualmie Depot:



The Messenger of Peace went on to visit hundreds of communities throughout the Northwest. It touched the lives of thousands of people yet its stories are nearly forgotten. The rehabilitation and restoration of chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace will help preserve and revive this exciting history. Please help support the effort by voting for the Messenger of Peace today and every day until May 12 at www.partnersinpreservation.org

More on the Messenger of Peace

Chapel Car 5 Messenger of Peace is competing for funding in the Partners In Preservation Seattle/Puget Sound initiative. At stake for the chapel car is up to $100,000 in funding and your votes will help decide if it gets funded! Vote today and every day until May 12 at http://www.PartnersInPreservation.org/

The chapel car is a pretty exciting project. Win or lose, it is getting a lot of attention. Check out what local officials had to say about the chapel car:

The chapel car was built in 1898 and served the American Baptist Publication Society for 50 years. Retired in 1948, the car had an after-life as a road side diner, cottage, and is now set to be rehabilitated to become a museum exhibit.

Chapel cars helped settle communities and develop the west. They helped establish community values in far-flung settlements, promote the Railroad YMCA, and revive congregation. Their story is nearly forgotten but now a surviving example - with your help - will be rehabilitated and used to tell their story.

Learn more about the chapel car at http://www.MessengerOfPeace.org/ and vote to fund it at http://www.PartnersInPreservation.org/

Vote to fund the chapel car!

A vote a day can help keep decay away!

Between now and May 12, a public vote is helping determine the outcome of Partners in Preservation Seattle Initiative. 25 historic properties in the Puget Sound Region are competing for a share of $1 million. Chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace is one of the properties and, if it is selected for an award from Partners in Preservation, the Museum will have enough funding to allow substantial completion of the chapel car rehabilitation.

This initiative is also an opportunity to launch a Messenger of Peace web site at http://www.messengerofpeace.org/ and a Messenger of Peace Facebook page.

Check out the Museum's promotional video:



So what is Partners in Preservation? The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the American Express Foundation created this initiative five years ago and have run the program in San Francisco, Chicagoland, New Orleans, and Boston. Local projects are pre-vetted and a short list is presented to the public for a vote. The top vote-getter receives full funding. Additional projects are selected for funding by a committee set up by the National Trust and American Express; for those projects the total number of votes will be a consideration.

The Northwest Railway Museum is delighted to learn that Partners in Preservation has selected the railroad chapel car to compete for funding in the Seattle initiative. This is the first railroad car and railway museum to be involved in this five-year-old initiative, and the program is an excellent opportunity to raise the profile of this little-known but impactful part of history. In all, 25 projects are competing for a share of funding; project values range from $65,000 to $125,000. The Chapel Car is competing for $100,000.

Chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace was built by Barney and Smith in 1898 and served the Baptist Publication Society, Baptist Home Mission Society and the Railroad YMCA for fifty years. It operated in at least 11 states and traveled extensively in the Pacific Northwest. After retirement, it was used in several creative ways from 1948 until 2006 including as a roadside diner, seaside cottage, and an unlicensed pharmaceutical distribution facility. In 2007 it was donated and moved to the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie, Washington.

The chapel car requires extensive rehabilitation and restoration to return it to the glory of its period of significance. The Save America’s Treasures grant awarded in December 2009 will combine with a Washington State Historical Society grant, funding from 4Culture and private contributions to allow carbody work to begin. Partners in Preservation funding, if awarded, will allow substantial completion of the project including fabrication of missing pews for the sanctuary.

To learn more and vote, visit http://www.trainmuseum.org/ Be the chapel car's saviour - vote today and every day until May 12!