The Spirit of Washington Dinner Train brought the romance of the rails to King County's Eastside for 15 years from 1992 to 2007. For a price guests enjoyed an excursion through the communities east of Lake Washington from Renton to Woodinville and back, with a dose of history and a good meal along the route. In the end, the popular attraction lost out to changing transportation systems, including rail abandonment, bridge replacement and freeway construction.
Our story begins at the Ellensburg Rodeo during Labor Day weekend 1988. The Temple family -- father Nick and brothers Eric (b. 1966) and Brig -- had recently purchased a short-line freight railway they called the Washington Central Railroad. Entrepreneurial sorts, they decided to try an experiment in rail excursions. They leased a set of old dining cars from the Canadian Railroad Historical Association and offered a dinner excursion along the Yakima River Canyon south of Ellensburg for the duration of the rodeo. The trip proved so popular that the Temples continued the enterprise the following spring, even adding a second route from Kennewick to the Hogue Cellars winery in Prosser. With the 1989 centennial of Washington's statehood in mind, the family christened the train Spirit of Washington.
May 1992 found the Temple family moving the dinner-train operation to Puget Sound with hopes of benefitting from a larger market and a year-round temperate climate. Eric Temple, with a degree in business administration from the University of Washington, was put in charge of the operation. The little-used Woodinville Subdivision of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) line offered an excellent route between the burgeoning city of Renton at the south end of Lake Washington and the popular wineries of the Sammamish Valley near the lake's north end. The Temples brought their collection of vintage engines and passenger cars across the Cascades and set up shop at the Renton Depot, contracting with BNSF for use of the line and retrofitting the dormant passenger station to serve as a welcome center.
The tracks from Renton to Woodinville and points north, once dubbed the Lake Washington Belt Line, were completed in 1904 by Northern Pacific Railway as a freight corridor, with some passenger service. All passenger travel along the route had ceased entirely decades before the coming of the Dinner Train.
The Dinner Train experience offered a three-and-a-half-hour excursion six days a week from Renton to Woodinville and back, approximately 24 miles each way. Guests were served dinner on the way up and coffee and dessert on the way back. Soon a weekend brunch train was added. The initial destination in Woodinville was the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery. After a year or two, when the active event schedule at that winery became an obstacle, the Dinner Train moved on to the Columbia Winery, where guests had a break of about 45 minutes to stretch their legs, perhaps taste some wine, and browse in the winery gift shop.
Views along the journey ranged from the gritty and industrial (Boeing, PACCAR) to the scenic (Lake Washington, Mercer Island). Riders experienced the somewhat harrowing trip along the 102-foot-tall Wilburton Trestle across the Mercer Slough in Bellevue. The train traveled under both Interstate 90 and State Route 520, took in the ever-changing skyline of downtown Bellevue, chugged through the tony residential neighborhoods of Kirkland, and fetched up in winey Sammamish Valley.
The Spirit of Washington was powered by F9 diesel electric engines built by General Motors in the 1950s -- one at each end. F9 number 84, painted red and with the Spirit of Washington logo on its nose, pulled several passenger cars and two domed cars; the latter offered better views for a premium price. Train cars bore iconic names: "Olympic", "Mt. Rainier", "Columbia Winery", "City of Renton", "Cascade", "City of Seattle", and "Chateau Ste. Michelle."
Gretchen's of Course, the well-known caterer, provided the meals in the early days. Once the business was established, Eric Temple built a catering kitchen adjacent to the Renton depot and took meal preparation in-house. Washington wines (and some others) were available, of course, for an additional cost. The full train had an advertised capacity of 370 passengers, with a crew of 43. Promotional literature dubbed it "the biggest dinner train in the country!"
Wait staff provided running commentary on the passing sights, expounding on the abrupt drop in the lake's shoreline occasioned by the opening of the Lake Washington Ship Canal in 1916; the building in 1904 by the Northern Pacific Railway of the Wilburton Trestle, at 975 feet the longest wooden trestle in the Pacific Northwest; the industrial roots of Kirkland; and the growing wine industry of the bucolic Sammamish Valley.
Some riders quibbled about the bumpiness of the ride, the quality of the food, the shared tables and the sometimes less-than-pristine views. In addition, the train ran into the safety problems inherent to operating a railway in a densely-populated area; there were at least nine accidents on the track during the train's run, two of them fatalities (one a suicide). Although it traveled at very slow speeds, the Dinner Train had to navigate 45 crossings in each direction, 27 public and 18 private, and chronically overgrown vegetation affected visibility for both train engineer and car drivers. In 2002 a BNSF freight train, the only other train still active on the southern portion of the route, crashed into the stationary and unoccupied Dinner Train at the Renton Depot, damaging the engine.
As heritage tourism, however, the Dinner Train was an unqualified success. According to figures supplied by the business itself, the train drew approximately 100,000 riders per year for a grand total of 1.4 million over the course of its stay on Lake Washington. At the same time, it pumped millions of dollars into the local economy. Over the train's run, The Spirit of Washington strove to be a good neighbor, providing charitable gifts worth more than a million dollars to the community, both cash and ticket donations.
With business booming, in 2005 Eric Temple expanded his Renton operation to include management of the city's new conference center. Temple signed a 10-year lease to operate the Pavilion, a former auto dealership building in the heart of Renton's downtown revitalization effort. The Spirit of Washington Conference Center provided catered events, with food prepared in the kitchen adjacent to the train depot, a mere two blocks away. Change, however, was already in the air. As the century turned, BNSF looked to reduce its responsibilities by abandoning the Woodinville Subdivision. Things came to a head when the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) announced plans to demolish the Wilburton Tunnel over Interstate 405 in 2008 in order to widen the freeway. The tunnel, actually a lid over Interstate 405, had been built in 1972 to convey the BNSF tracks over the freeway. Removal of the lid would by necessity break the rail line. Any re-routing of the track would take some time and effort, something neither WSDOT nor BNSF was interested in doing.
Abandonment is a legal term for the process under which, in 2008, the railroad sought and received permission from the United States Surface Transportation Board to cease operation and maintenance of 42 miles of the rail corridor and to sell the right of way. (Five miles of the 47-mile long line, from the old Black River Junction to Gene Coulon Park in Renton, remained in BNSF hands, largely to serve Boeing's Renton plant.) With the rail corridor now up for grabs, King County emerged as a key interested party, as did the Port of Seattle. In complicated, fretful, and lengthy negotiations, King County Parks, the Port, and a number of local jurisdictions and utilities agreed to divvy up the spoils. The Port purchased the entire rail right of way for $81.4 million, some 42 miles from Renton to Snohomish, with a spur line to Redmond, at the tail end of 2009, and then set out to re-sell portions of the corridor. The stated goal was to preserve the entire length of rail line in public hands, but whether for purely recreational purposes or some combination of rail and trail remained a question of much dispute.
While negotiations dragged out, rail enthusiasts rallied to save a corridor they believed might still be used for commuter rail. Eastside Rail Now! and All Aboard Washington advocated hard to keep the line intact. With construction of light rail well underway in Seattle, All Aboard Washington made an abortive effort to purchase the line from BNSF in 2007. Renton had invested money and energy in promoting the Dinner Train as part of its "Renton: Ahead of the Curve" marketing campaign. Naturally, the city was not happy about the demise of its premier tourist attraction.
The outcome of the negotiations worked out nicely for Boeing. Previously, in order to avoid the too-narrow and outdated Cedar River railroad bridge on the rail line accessing Renton from the west, the company had been using the tracks south of Snohomish along the Eastside to ship its 737-900 stretch fuselages into its Renton plant. The replacement Cedar River bridge allowed Boeing to ship all its Kansas-manufactured fuselages southward through Seattle and then up through downtown Renton.
Resolution of Renton's beef with BNSF was cold comfort to fans of the Dinner Train, which was now a lost cause. With the handwriting on the wall, Eric Temple had been actively exploring his options, including the possibility of moving the headquarters of the Dinner Train to Bellevue, Redmond or Woodinville, with a run heading up into Snohomish County. Ultimately, he accepted an offer to move the entire operation to Pierce County. On July 31, 2007, the Spirit of Washington made its last run out of Renton with many bystanders waving a farewell. Three days later, on August 3, the train began a new excursion route between Tacoma's Freighthouse Square station and Lake Kapowsin. Hopes were high that the new route might eventually be extended as far as Mount Rainier. However, after 10 months, the enterprise was scrapped as unprofitable.
Proponents of biking and walking trails eagerly looked to the day when the Eastside of Lake Washington would have a continuous recreational trail from the Snohomish County line down to Renton. Some urged a compromise position allowing the rails to stay with trails built parallel to them, perhaps separated by a wire fence. By 2013, the Port of Seattle had sold off pieces of what was now called the Eastside Rail Corridor to the City of Kirkland, the City of Redmond and Puget Sound Energy. A short section through Bellevue was purchased by Sound Transit for use in planned light rail. The following year, King County finalized its purchase of approximately 16 miles of track, and, in 2016, Snohomish County purchased the right-of-way for the portion of track in that county. Later the City of Woodinville purchased the last section of rail owned by the Port. All owners, as well as other adjacent jurisdictions and the Eastside Greenway Alliance, agreed to work together as the Eastside Rail Corridor Regional Advisory Council, with a stated goal "to achieve connectivity and multiple uses, maximizing public benefit and enjoyment throughout the corridor both directly and indirectly.
In October 2017, King County Parks held a spike-pulling ceremony at Gene Coulon Park in Renton, the symbolic start of efforts to transform the old Belt Line into a recreational trail. As of September 2018, King County had completed two sections of trail and the City of Kirkland had opened a third. A dwindling freight service still ran on the northernmost portion of the track, between Woodinville and Snohomish, courtesy of Eastside Freight Railroad. The Wilburton Trestle was fenced off for safety, while the City of Bellevue evaluated its use as a high-flying part of a trail system. Additional stretches of train track remained the subject of continuing planning, surveying, historic-resource inventorying, funding, and controversy. Meanwhile a further widening of Interstate 405 loomed.
The old depot in Renton was converted to a tourist information bureau run by the city's Chamber of Commerce. Rain City Catering took on operation of the Renton Pavilion using the commercial kitchen constructed by Eric Temple adjacent to the train depot. As of 2018 Boeing shipped all plane fuselages into its Renton plant from the west, using the five miles of track still in the possession of BNSF, since the Eastside corridor was no longer available as an alternate north-south route.
Our TripI parked in a new lot across from the train.
The Spirit of Washington Dinner Train at its Tacoma boarding location.
WCRC F7A 84, ex. Maryland Area Regional Commuter 84, exx. Maryland Area Regional Commuter 7184, exxx. Baltimore and Ohio 4472, nee Baltimore and Ohio F3A 165 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1948 and rebuilt by Morrison- Knudsen in 1980.
The consist of our train was: Baltimore and Ohio F9 82, Columbia Basin SD9 166, rounded-end observation car "Olympic Crusader", dome 106 "Mt. Rainier", dining/bar car 103 "Columbia Winery", full dome 100 "City of Renton", kitchen car 102 "Cascade dome 104 "City of Seattle", platform 101 "Chateau Ste. Michelle", head-end power car and Baltimore and Ohio F9 84. I then walked around the train.
Washington Central F7A 82, ex. Maryland Area Regional Commuter 82, exx. Maryland Area Regional Commuter 7182, exxx. Morrison-Knuden 5, exxxx. Baltimore and Ohio 4582, nee Baltimore and Ohio 939 built by Electro-Motive Divisoin in 1952, under the street bridge.
Columbia Basin Railway SD9 166, nee Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range 1966 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1959. I picked up my boarding pass in the railway's new offices at Freighthouse Square then knowing that the first southbound Sounder train arrived at 5:20 PM, I went up to the top of the east parking structure to watch it cross the former Milwaukee Road wooden trestle before it arrived at the Freighthouse Square/Tacoma Dome station.
The first Sounder of the evening commute crossed the trestle and I returned to the boarding area.
The second Sounder arrived at the Station. Andrew met me and I gave him some Southern California timetables since he now lived in Tacoma.
Guests arrived and had the opportunity for a picture beside F7A 82. At 5:55 PM, boarding of the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train was announced and I boarded the dome of the "City of Seattle" and was assigned Table 21.
The view from my dome table.
The third Sounder arrived.
Anthony was our server this evening.
Bob and Elizabeth were spotted at 6:20 PM and soon joined me at our table. Coca-Cola was provided for my enjoyment and salads were then served for those who wanted them. We started to move at 6:42 PM then came to a sudden halt. With whatever the problem fixed, the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train attacked the 4.4 percent grade of Tacoma Hill with me in the open air of "Chateau Ste Michelle".
I was really impressed with the climb up Tacoma Hill. I returned to the dome and as we made our way to Frederickson, my Prime Rib, as well as Bob and Elizabeth's salmon, were served. All meals were very delicious and good railroading conversations were had as we enjoyed our meals aboard the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train. Everyone along our route was waving at our train and one sign read "Who needs a Winery!"
The train was passing through the forest on our way to Lake Kapowsin and we went by Thrift siding.
Lake Kapowsin finally came into view.
The train stopped here for thirty minutes but no one was allowed to detrain so the only option was to walk the train, which almost everyone did.
Great reflectivity in the lake. I made my way back to the dome.
With a puff of engine smoke, we started the trip back to Tacoma.
Patiently waiting on the sky.
We had a great sunset aboard the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train.
Chris and Julie celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary tonight. Tabs were brought to each passenger or couple and since mine was zero, I tipped Anthony ten dollars for his excellent service. The train slowly made its way down Tacoma Hill before arriving at Freighthouse square station at 10:02 PM, where I detrained and walked to the front of our train.
The Spirit of Washington Dinner Train had returned after its first revenue run on its new route out of Tacoma and all three of us had great time aboard it. I returned to the Travelodge in Fife for the night.
