After our Internet duties, Elizabeth and I went down to the buffet breakfast at the Cascadia Inn then Elizabeth drove us across the tracks to the Great Northern and Cascade Railway's parking lot. It looked quite familiar from my last visit in 2017 but I did notice some changes. Elizabeth volunteered here from 2014 to 2019.
Great Northern & Cascade Railway background informationThe Great Northern & Cascade Railway Railway offers free train rides to the public as well as a railroad education program. The Railroad operates May through October, every weekend plus holidays. We currently have over 2,700 feet of track. We are working on our second line and when completed we will have 4,000 feet of track.
The GN&C Railway has one locomotive (2-6-0) and plus ten riding cars, built by its volunteers in addition to all the locomotives owned by our members that they use to give free rides to the public.
In order to operate this railroad, a volunteer organization was formed, the "Great Northern & Cascade Railway" which is a Washington State Non-Profit Charity. Members of this organization will be in operational control of all of the aspects of the railroad. This will include the operation of the trains, building of additional track, turntable and steam-up areas, construction of railroad equipment storage and support buildings and crowd management. All of the above construction is financed from by donations received from operations and the gift store.
Tom Dietz opened the station and we entered.
Great Northen Railway and Wellington Avalanche story board.
Skykomish map.
John E. Stevens and the new Cascade Tunnel story boards.
Model of a steam engine used for donations and restorations.
A Sheffield velocipede.
Engineer control stand and his seat.
Bonnie Hollingsworth, one of the volunteers, built this O-scale model of the frequency-converter substation which stood in Skykomish from 1927 to 1992. From 1929 to 1956, electric locomotives were used to pull trains from Skykomish to Wenatchee because steam locomotives could not safely pull them through the newly-constructed 7.8 mile Cascade Tunnel drilled under Stevens Pass.
Great Northern Skykomish station built in 1898, which was originally located on the south side of the line. During an expansion of the rail yard in 1922, the depot was moved to the north side of the tracks, where it remained for about forty years. The depot has since been returned to the south side of the tracks. It is one of the last wood frame Great Northern depots remaining in the state of Washington.
Ton Dieiz taking the engine on safety run. It was now time to take our ride and we added some more cars.
Santa Fe Railway 1211, acquired in 2021 from an individual in Portland, Oregon, currently out-of-service.
The Cascade Tunnel on the railroad.
The engine that pulled our train.
Museum scene.
The Cascade Tunnel once again.
Great Northern Skykomish station.
Crossing the creek on a truss bridge.
Looking back at the station.
The water tower.
Cascade Tunnel.
Thanks for Riding. I bought a souvenir T-shirt then we said our goodbyes to the other volunteers, including Kevin Weiderstrom, the Society's President and the driving force behind the whole venture. Elizabeth drove us to Lynnwood, where she lived for ten years. We passed the house, whose new owners were not as keen on gardening as Elizabeth was, and it showed. We stopped at Alderwood Mall to buy a couple of gifts from the Made in Washington store and Elizabeth was successful in acquiring the Golden Toe ankle socks that she wears; they are only available at Macy's and there is no Macy's in Columbia, Missouri. As we drove down Interstate 5, the Lynnwood extension of Link Light Rail was in the final testing phase and test trains were running all the way to Lynnwood, where service would commence August 1st.
The Northgate extension of the original Link Light Rail, whose line is now called 1 Line, opened in October 2021 and as we had not been to Washington for a few years, decided to ride this segment. Elizabeth found the way to the Northgate station which is at the Northgate Shopping Centre in North Seattle. After parking and walking down to the station, she used her ORCA card and I bought a ticket for the round trip to Westlake Centre.
The route map of both 1 Line (Angle Lake to Northgate) and 2 Line (Redmond to South Bellevue) in the Siemens cars. The train left Northgate and stopped at Roosevelt, U District, University of Washington and Capitol Hill before we detrained at Westlake Center then went up and over the tracks to photograph some trains.
A train at Westlake Station.
The Link train that took us back to Northgate.
The train at Northgate. We took Interstate 5 to Washington Highway 520 across Lake Washington's Evergreen Point Floating Bridge which we took to Redmond and our next train ride.
The train at Redmond Technology Station. The Two Line connects the Eastside suburbs of Bellevue and Redmond. It has 6.6 miles of tracks and eight stations with termini at South Bellevue station and Redmond Technology station. Construction of the line, also known as the East Link Extension, was funded by the Sound Transit 2 ballot measure and began in 2016 at a cost of $3.7 billion. The initial phase on the Eastside opened on April 27, 2024, while work on the Seattle–Bellevue and Downtown Redmond sections continue. The remainder of the line is expected to open in 2025 with additional stations in Seattle, Mercer Island and Redmond.
These cars are built by Siemens and we stopped at Overlake Village, BelRed, Spring District, Wilburton, Bellevue Downtown, East Main and the final stop at South Bellevue.
The route map of the Two Line.
Our train at the South Bellevue station. We returned to the Redmond Technology station and left to find a petrol station, then we drove to Issaquah to another station.
Seattle Lake Shore and Eastern Issaquah station built in 1889 as a passenger station and freight warehouse serving what was then known as Gilman (and as Squak Valley until 1888). The town was renamed Issaquah around the turn of the century. Only a few years after the depot's opening, the SLS&E was taken over by the Northern Pacific Railway. The Issaquah Depot's use as a passengerstation ended in the 1940's and Northern Pacific abandoned the building in 1962. The City of Issaquah purchased the building in 1984, restoration began in 1985 and was completed in the early 1990's. It now operates as a museum, managed by the non-profit Issaquah Historical Museums. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
Great Northern 40 foot flat car 67291 built by the railroad in 1927.
Weyerhauser Forest Prodcuct caboose 602, nee Southern Pacific 1206 built by the railroad in 1942.
United States Army kitchen car, number unknown, built by American Car and Foundry in 1943.
The Issaquah Valley Trolley car barn built in spring 2001, sometimes referred to as the "display building", because glass windows on its west side allow the public to see the trolley car inside.
Issaquah Valley Trolley 519 built by J.G. Brill and assembled in Lisbon, Portugal in 1925. This and another Lisbon trolley were acquired from a failed trolley line in Aspen, Colorado and had to be re-gauged from narrow to standard.
This was a heritage streetcar line and a project of the Issaquah History Museums, operating on a trial basis in 2001–02 and then on a regular basis, seasonally, from 2012 to 2020, when it was announced that it had decided to discontinue operation of the streetcar permanently, citing increasing insurance costs and other factors that had raised the cost of operation, in combination with cuts to the organization's financial resources.
When the tran came through town display board.
A Northern Pacific signal.
The caboose imformation on a rather faded board.
Elizabeth then drove us to Black Diamond but we stopped at Jersey Mike's in Maple Valley beforehand.
Columbia & Puget Sound Railroad (later Pacific Coast Company) Black Diamond station built in 1885. The Black Diamond Historical Society was formed by a small group, led by Carl and Ann Steiert, who decided to honor the nation's bicentennial by preserving a little bit of America right at home. Many felt a strong concern for the disappearing buildings and artifacts in Black Diamond. Restoration of the depot began following the formation of the Historical Society in 1976 and the group obtained it from the City of Black Diamond.
After the depot closed in the 1930's, the building was used as a restaurant, a library, a telephone exchange, an office for the water department and a storage shed for the city maintenance. It was full of items left by all former occupants, and although it had never been restored, it had been "modernized" with poured tile floors, aluminum windows and lowered ceilings. Eventually work crews completely renovated the structure. High ceilings were restored, wooden-frame windows were installed and the building was painted in the original colors inside and out. They also added a bay window and constructed a "coal mine entrance" underneath. Work began almost immediately, but was slow and plodding since money had to be raised and plans drawn. The Museum was opened on June 6, 1982, in a gala celebration honouring the one-hundredth birthday of Black Diamond.
Plymouth switcher 83 history and construction unknown.
This haul motor was used around Franklin and Ravendale.
A painting of Black Diamond.
Pacific Coast Railroad timetable 48.
Welcome to the Coal Miner's Honor Garden and Depot Museum.
Black Diamond King of Coal Timeline.
A coal miner statue.
A mural on the side of the building.
From here I drove to Dacca Park in Fife for a railroad display that owes its existance to many people but particularly David Cantlin who used to work for the City of Fife Parks Department and is an avid rail historian.
Union Pacific caboose 25722, ex. Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company 25722, nee Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company 3564, built by Standard Steel in 1910. It spent most of its carer travelling between Utah and the Pacific Northwest, which included track that ran through Fife on the joint Milwaukee and Union Pacific line. The caboose was donated to Western Forest Museum in Tacoma (name changed to Camp 6 Logging Museum) then moved to Fife for restoration by volunteers and the Historical Railway Preservation Company which began in 2001-2002 and lasted for ten years.
Chehalis Western C415 684 built by American Locomotive Company in 1968 and delivered to the railroad, a Weyerhaeuser property, in Western Washington. It spent most of its time running on the Curtis, Milburne and Eastern railroads, which later became part of the Chehalis and Western and the lines ran log trains from Western Junction (in the Tenino area) to the Port of Tacoma. These trains made a "back-up" move when they entered the Union Pacific switch yard in Fife on their way to Tacoma Rail's main yard in the Port where the trains were delivered to a transloader for overseas shipment. This operation ran from 1980 to 1992.
In January 2009, the City officially took possession of the locomotive through a City-to-City transfer sale of surplus property. This rare engine, only 26 were sold and only four survive today, is on permanent display at the Fife History Museum in Dacca Park. Engine Number 684 received a new coat of paint courtesy of CEECO in return for a few of her spare parts that would not be needed for display.
The engine and caboose serve as a reminder of Fife's close ties with Seattle-area railroads. In its history, Fife was served by the Milwaukee Road, Union Pacific, Puget Sound Electric Railway and Chehalis and Western. Today, the city is home to the Union Pacific Railroad's Tacoma Yard that serves the Port and many local industries, making it an important player in the region's transportation picture.
Information board about the engine and caboose as well as the volunteers who made it all possible.
After calling David, who lives in Oklahoma, to let him know we were visiting Dacca Park, Elizabeth drove us to the Quailty Inn for the night.
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