We arose at the Days Inn in Sandpoint, Idaho and after our morning preparations, Elizabeth drove us to the downtown location of Frank's Diner in Spokane. She first learned of this restaurant in a railcar a couple of years ago from a posting on Facebook by an acquaintance, while I had never heard of it. So this was a definite stop during our Pacific Northwest visit.
Frank's Diner parlour-observation car 1787, built by Barney & Smith in 1906. In 1931, destiny steered this car into the hands of the visionary Frank Knight. Amidst the echoes of the Great Depression, Car 1787 found a new track, and it was lovingly converted into Frank's Diner.
The dining area.
We had to wait for fifteen minutes for two seats at the counter to become available. I enjoyed a waffle with bacon and Elizabeth had an omelette.
A January 1939 calandar.
A Northern Pacific passenger train.
On the way to the washroom were more vintage railway photographs, such as this "Picture your family in a train".
The interior of an older coach.
The interior of an older dining car.
The interior of a lounge car.
Frank's Diner You Betcha sign.
Frank's Diner neon sign on top of the railcar.
Elizabeth then drove us 24 miles to the Inland Northwest Rail Museum in Reardan.
Inland Northwest Rail Museum HistoryIn 1967, a group of railroad enthusiasts formed a local chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and named it the Inland Empire Railway Historical Society. The organization aims to preserve the history of railroading in the Inland Northwest for future generations. Years of hard work have created the museum we are proud to share today.
The Society’s first major project began in 1970 with the cleaning and painting of retired Union Pacific locomotive 3206 in Spokane’s Highbridge Park. That same locomotive was the first piece of equipment that was moved to the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds in 1978.
Since that time, the group’s train display and museum has grown to include almost 30 different rail cars and engines plus an outstanding selection of railroad memorabilia and an extensive library.
Located at the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds for over 30 years, the Society was given an eviction notice in June of 2002 that instigated a statewide search for a new home. In the meantime, the organization continued to operate the narrow gauge ride and museum train during the Spokane County Interstate Fair each September through 2014.
In December 2002, the Society chose a 30-acre parcel of land two miles west of Reardan as its new museum location. Developing a new museum and moving a collection of our size was a monumental project. We thank Eastern Washington Gateway Railroad who transported our collection to Reardan by rail. A crossing on Sunset Highway was installed prior to the summer of 2010 joining a spur from a switch off the EWGR onto the Reardan site. The line is now operated by Washington Eastern Railroad.
Laying display tracks continued throughout this time. In the summer of 2011 a great deal of infrastructure was completed. The group also developed a location to place a donated Union Pacific turntable. It was transported from Spokane by rail and installed in its permanent location by crane in January 2012. Few rail museums have such an asset, which is one of our largest artifacts. Plans for the museum facilities moved into high gear in 2012 as Spokane architecture firm MMEC was hired to produce a site plan for the Reardan property.
2013 brought continued work on the design and fundraising for Phase I of the museum (a conservation and restoration building and visitors center allowing us to become operational at the new location) and a fall groundbreaking celebration. Construction of this first building was completed in 2016, with our grand opening held on August 27 of that year.
The organization now operates the Inland Northwest Rail Museum on 30 acres near Reardan, WA, adjacent to the Washington Eastern Railroad short line, at the junction of State Hwy 2 and 231 S. We have added both rolling stock and motive power to our collection recently.
Our Visit
We started to walk to the Lee Tillotson Conservation and Restoration Center but found a couple of items of interest on the way.
Railway Express Company baggage cart.
Speeder F was also on display.
A caboose of unknown origin. We went inside and were greeted by volunteer John Simanton, who is also the Inland Empire Chapter's representative on the National Railway Historical Society Advisory Council.
A series of Larry Fisher paintings.
John provided the following captions as he is in charge of the model railroad. Essentially, the motif of the layout is "Somewhere in the Cascades". Clearly, its prime territory for The Milwaukee Road, and also the electrified portion of the Great Northern near the Cascade Tunnel. I can also run Northern Pacific and Union Pacific on trackage rights. Three tracks of the fiddle yard serve the (unfinished) Cascade Metal Salvage Co. The facility is built around a Lionel magnetic Gantry crane which works. It also incorporates a K-Line/Lionel operating scrap yard with animated figures finishing off the nose of a Rio Grande F-unit. One of the figures is wielding a cutting torch with an LED simulating the flickering of the unit. The freight train is on the outer oval of the concentric main lines being pulled by the inevitable O gauge generic electric locomotive New Haven EP-5, here disguised as Milwaukee Road.
The Milwaukee Road Olympian with K-Line cars and a Williams locomotive. Once again, a bit of fudging. The locomotive is actually a New York Central J-series Hudson but Williams did do a gorgeous job giving is the correct markings for a Milwaukee F-6 class Hudson.
Spokane, Portland and Seattle pictures.
Locomotive horns and additional pictures.
Great Northern calendars and pictures.
West Spokane, Villard Junction and pictures.
Bonners Ferry station sign.
Great Northern marker lights and the railroad symbols through the years.
A the top of the stairs, the Great Northern emblem.
Seattle's King Street Station by Larry Fisher.
Empire Builder on Marias Pass by Larry Fisher.
Avery Swap Meet by Larry Fisher.
Spokane's Hidden Beauty by Larry Fisher.
Night Activity at the S.P.U.D. Larry Fisher. S.P.U.D. stands for St. Paul Union Depot.
Railroad emblem display board.
Looking downstairs.
Model of White Pass and Yukon engine number 10.
Burlington Northern bicentennial units.
Station boards from Pacific Northwest railways.
Amtrak uniforms.
Inland Northwest Rail Museum Our Vision Preserving History...Building a future.
Cannon Hill and Pacific Railroad Frank T. Ford Boston Traffic Representative. From here we went downstairs.
Large-scale model of a Great Northern caboose.
BNSF SD9 1730, nee Great Northern 598, built by Electro-Motive Division in 1958. A gift of the BNSF Railway, this SD9 was in use around Klamath Falls and later spent many years serving the Interbay yard in Seattle before being retired by BNSF. Unique for its dynamic braking system, it was last transported on a mainline in 2005 before coming to the museum in 2020. We will restore this engine as we are able.
Kettle Falls Spokane Division timetable board.
Spokane's Electric Railways.
Inland Northwest Rail Museum streetcar 140, ex. Inland Empire Chapter National Railway Historical Society 140 1979-2016, exx. Spokane United Railway 140 1922-1938, exx. Spokane United Railways Brill Streetcar 140, nee Washington Water Power Company built by J.G. Brill in 1906. It became part of the Spokane United Railways system when the street car lines of WWP and Spokane Traction Co. were consolidated. From about 1938, two years after streetcar use was discontinued in Spokane, until the 1960's, it served as a restaurant in Chewelah, Washinton. It was donated to the organization in 1979.
The interior of streetcar 140.
The controls.
Private Roadway sign by the Spokane International Railroad company. We then went outside to explore.
Northern Pacific coach 589, built by Pullman-Standard in 1946, for the North Coast Limited, as a 56-seat coach. Originally painted in NP's dark green and black, it was the first coach repainted in the Lowey two-tone green scheme. It was a work train bunk car on the Burlington Northern in the 1970's and 1980's. IERHS purchased from a scrap dealer in 1988 and it is now partially restored and serves as a display car.
This turntable served on the Union Pacific Railroad for over 50 years until Wal-Mart bought out the land, causing it to be removed. It was then donated to the museum and is thought of as one of the largest acquisitions in history for the museum.
Western Pacific caboose 438, built by International Car in 1956.
Union Pacific 4-6-2 3205, nee Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company 192, built by American Locomotive Company in 1904. It spent most of its years on Union Pacific branch lines in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho because of its relatively light weight. In 1955 it was donated to the City of Spokane and was trucked to a display site at High Bridge Park. In June 1978 it was deeded to the Inland Railway Empire Historical Society and moved over city streets to the Spokane County Fairgrounds.
Inland Northwest Rail Museum 4-6-6 sleeper 906060 "American Scene", nee Union Pacific 4-6-6 duplex roomette "American Scene" built by Pullman Company in 1942. In 1968, the car was retired and stripped, but was then used as a bunk car until the 1970's. It was donated to the museum in 1995 and has served as a key part of our museum train for 20 years.
Interior of "American Scene".
Inland Northwest Rail Museum baggage car 429, ex. Great Northern maintenance-of-way 03111 1951, exx. Great Northern baggage car 429 1940, exxx. Great Northern official car A-12 1924, exxxx. Great Northern buffet-parlour car 7531, exxxxx. Eastern of Minnesota 790 1907, exxxxxx. Great Northern buffet-smoker car 752, nee Great Northern dining car 552, built by Barney & Smith in 1893. It is now on display as part of our museum train and showcases lots of memorabilia.
Interior of Great Northern baggage car 429.
Burlington Northern caboose 11242, nee Great Northern caboose X937, built by the railroad in 1941, typical of that company's tongue-and-groove siding. IERHS purchased the caboose, at the time painted Burlington Northern green and moved it to the fairgrounds. It is restored to a Great Northern 1940's color scheme.
Interior of the caboose.
Inland Northwest Rail Museum baggage car 319, ex. Great Northern semi-streamlined baggage car 319 1950, nee Pullman buffet-lounge-observation "Cyrus H. Jenks" built by the company in 1929. When rebuilt, the upper half was reconstructed to conform with the lines of the 1947 and 1950 Empire Builder trains, the lower half is as it was in 1929. The museum uses it for storage and as a birthday car.
Inland Northwest Rail Museum F9A 6703A, ex. Burlington Northern 778, exx. Burlington Northern 9812 1970, exxx. Northern Pacific 6703-A when converted to include a steam heat boiler, nee Northern Pacific 7010D built by Electro-Motive Division in 1956.
F9 locomotives first went into service on the Northern Pacific in 1954, assigned to the tough hill between Livingston and Bozeman. It was last used in revenue freight service in 1981 before serving as a power car for a rotary snowplough in Staples, Minnesota. It was donated to the museum in 1986 and has been repainted in its original Northern Pacific color scheme.
Great Falls Smelter Railway 45 ton electric locomotive L451 built by Baldwin Locomotive Works and Westinghouse Electric in 1901. Smelting operations began at Great Falls, Montana, in 1893 when copper ore from mines in Butte, began to be concentrated, smelted and refined into blister copper. In 1910, the refinery was bought by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company and renamed the Great Falls Reduction Department. Great Falls Smelter Railway was originally owned by the Boston & Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company.
L-451 drew power from a third rail. The red brackets on the side of the two trucks originally had shoes that drew power from the third rail laid outside the wheel-bearing rail. A similar system is still in use today on much of the metropolitan transport system in London.
L-451 was one of many locomotives bought by scrap dealer Maurice Weissman of Great Falls when the smelter closed in 1980. It has been painted to simulate the electric switch engine that saw service on the Inland Empire System in Spokane and numbered 502.
Inland Northwest Rail Museum coach 971, ex. Pend Oreille Valley 971, nee Great Northern 971 built by Barney and Smith in 1914.
Spokane, Portland and Seattle 40 foot steel boxcar 13930 built by Great Northern Railroad in 1948.
Great Northern coach 960, nee Pend Oreille Valley 960, built by Barney & Smith in 1914.
Great Northern box car, history unknown.
Great Northern double-vestibuled 84 seat coach 4502, nee Great Northern 952, built by Barney & Smith in 1914. It was one of 30 such cars built had 84 seats. The 952 was modernized in 1935 with ice-activated air conditioning and a women's lounge, with seating reduced to 78. By November 1968, 952 and several other cars from this lot which had been modernized, but not streamlined, were no longer on the roster. Some of the cars which had been streamlined were also retired by that point in time. It was used by the BN as a dining facility for BN Maintenance-of-Way crews. When we got the car, it still had a gas stove in it. By 2015 the 952 along with ex GN mail storage car 247 needed to be moved or they would be sold for scrap. They were gifted to the INWRM and moved to the museum. 952 has received a new coat of paint and initial restoration work on the windows.
Great Northern baggage car 270 built by the railroad in 1948 as a heavyweight passenger car then rebuilt by the St. Cloud, Minnesota shops in 1948 and is now used for storage.
Northern Pacific Pullman Standard express car 1404 built by the Railway Express Agency in 1918 and was used for small package and parcel transportation on the NPRR. Cars like this were especially helpful during World War I when the government was concerned with getting parcels, money and goods transported quickly and safely.
Great Northern railway post office car 280 built by St. Louis Car Company in 1914. Such cars were first introduced in the United States in 1862, establishing the first permanent route in 1864. Railway post office trains ran until 1960. This car is now used for storage.
Great Northern Railway post office 328, built by the railroad in 1910.
Great Northern mail storage car 247, nee Great Northern 307 built by American Car & Foundry in 1918. In the United States, a railway post office car was normally operated in passenger service as a means to sort mail enroute, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly trained Railway Mail Service clerks, and was off limits to the passengers on the train. In the UK, the equivalent term was Traveling Post Office. From the middle of the 19th Century, many American railroads earned substantial revenues through contracts with the U.S. Post Office Department to carry mail aboard high-speed passenger trains; and the Railway Mail Service enforced various standardized design on RPOs. In fact, a number of companies maintained passenger routes where the financial losses from moving people were more than offset by transporting the mail. In the United States, RPO cars were equipped and staffed to handle most back-end postal processing functions. First class mail, magazines and newspapers were all sorted, cancelled when necessary, and dispatched to post offices in towns along the route. Registered mail was also handled, and the foreman in charge was required to carry a regulation pistol while on duty to discourage theft of the mail.
This car was acquired from the Washington State Railroads Historical Society Museum Collection in Pasco.
Union Pacific baggage car, history unknown.
Spokane, Seattle and Portland sleeper-buffet lounge 601 "Mount St. Helens", built by Pullman-Standard in 1950.
Interior of the car.
Great Northern coach 974, built by Barney & Smith in 1914. It was rebuilt in 1930 as a "café car" by Great Northern giving it a dining room and kitchen and seating about 50 passengers. All café cars were a step above normal standard coach. Currently our highest priority renovation project, the 974 was painted in 2021 and is being readied for service on our tour train.
Inland Northwest Rail Museum library car 60, ex. Great Northern Railway maintenance-of-way car, exx. Great Northern baggage car 60, nee Great Northern railway post office car 308 built by American Car Foundry in 1918. The library holds over 1,500 railroad books, photos, maps and other papers.
Union Pacific diner 4057, built by the Pullman Company in 1914, as a Harriman-Standard full-service diner for the Union Pacific, it was changed to a lunch counter diner after just a few years service. It was last used on the Hinkle, Oregon on a work train. It was donated to the IERHS by the Union Pacific. in 1986. After some interior restoration work, it was moved to the Museum Display Train for the 1998 Spokane Interstate Fair.
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific caboose 01907 built by the railroad in 1941. It last served on the St. Maries River Railroad and was acquired by the museum in 1994. A fully crewed caboose was required for rail safety until the 1980s.
Cannon Hill & Pacific 0-4-0T 9 built by Davenport Locomotive Works in 1905. This locomotive was purchased from an unknown source by the Joy family of Spokane in 1936 and operated on their private Cannon Hill & Pacific Railroad. In 1956, it passed to Richard Shaefer of Lewiston, Idaho then to the Inland Empire Railway Historical Society at Spokane in 1997.
The Reardan Rocket train set.
Inland Northwest Rail Museum switcher built by Plymouth in 1930. For most of its life, it worked in a brickyard in Portland and was donated to The Inland Empire Railway Historical Society in 1978 by Mr. Dick Thrash of Snoqualmie.
The Balder depot, originally located five miles south of Rosalia, Washington.
Homestead Mining 0-4-0CA 28 built by H. K. Porter in 1910. This diminutive 18" gauge compressed air engine was built for the Homestake Mining Company in Lead, South Dakota. Compressed air was a suitable form of power for mining equipment because it produced no noxious fumes or damp-causing steam. The Homestake deposit was discovered by Fred and Moses Manuel, Alex Engh and Hank Harney in April 1876, during the Black Hills Gold Rush. The mine finally ceased production at the end of 2001 as a result of low gold prices, poor ore quality and high costs.
Museum scenes. Now enjoy a ride on the Reardan Rocket.
Views from the Reardan Rocket.
Inland Northwest Rail Museum GP9 317, ex. Klarr Locomotive Industries 317, exx. New York and Greenwood Lake Railway 1268, exxx. Fort Smith Railroad 1902, exxxx. Arkansas-Oklahoma 1902, exxxxx. Burlington Northern 1902, nee Northern Pacific GP9 317 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1957.
It was donated by the Promontory Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, which was collaborating with the Inland Northwest Rail Museum to have it prepared and moved to their site for eventual static display and it arrived earlier in the summer.
The ride on the Readan Rocket.
John Simanton, our engineer, posed by his engine.
Northern Pacific box car 20700 built circa 1889 for the Spokane & Inland Empire/Spokane, Coeur d’Alene & Palouse railroads, and is one of the oldest pieces of rolling stock in our collection.
We acquired some souvenirs from their wide variety of merchandise and thanked John for an excellent visit to this impressive museum then started our drive east towards home.
We crossed the state line into the Gem State of Idaho, a nickname it has had since its territorial days. The name of the territory, however, was originally more hype than fact. The word Idaho was supposedly derived from a purported Indian word "E-Dah-Hoe" meaning "Gem of the Mountains" or "Light on the Mountain". In truth, it was a neologism taken by those politically interested in getting the Idaho Territory established. So the "Gem State" was not on first intent justly honoured for its gem and mineral treasures, though as it has turned out it could have been.
Our last destination of the day was Wallace.
Northern Pacific Wallace station built in 1901, with unique bricks from the Olympian Hotel, the original terminus of the transcontinental Northern Pacific Railroad in Tacoma. In 1986, due to the construction of Interstate 90, the building was moved approximately 200 feet across the Coeur d’Alene River to its current location.
Let us take you back to when railroads were a primary mode of transportation for both people and freight. The Northern Pacific Depot Museum features a replica of a working railroad agent's room from the turn of the 20th Century, where you can see a beautiful old safe and even talk on a real telephone from 1908.
In honor and recognition of Harry F. Magnuson for his tireless dedication to the preservation of historic Wallace, Idaho plaque.
A timetable board high up on the wall.
Train Bulletin 1914. Unfortunately, we arrived twenty minutes before they closed for the day so were not allowed to buy a ticket to see the interior displays, so we continued towards Deer Lodge, Montana.
The state line of Montana.
BNSF ES44DC 7803 built by General Electric in 2005. We went to Jersey Mike's where I had a roast beef sandwich and Elizabth a turkey sandwich. She then drove us to Deer Lodge and we stayed at the Old Montana Inn for the night.
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