www.rgusrail.com - Snoqualmie

Snoqualmie, just off I-90, 25 miles east of Seattle, WA, is home to the Northwest Railway Museum. The museum was founded in 1957 as the Puget Sound Railway Historical Association but, in September 1999, became the Northwest Railway Museum.

The museum’s exhibits are currently housed in the old Snoqualmie Depot. The museum operates excursions from the depot on weekends during the Spring-Fall season, as well as on other holidays. It also participates in Railroad Days, an annual celebration of the Snoqualmie’s history of railroading and logging.

The museum really has a remarkable collection of small logging locomotives but, when I visited in March 2008, most of it was outside, exposed to the wet western Cascades weather. Happily, at the time of posting these photographs (January 2009) plans were under way to construct a 24,000 sq. ft. building to house the locomotives and the other museum exhibits.

The depot building was constructed by the Seattle, Lakeshore & Eastern Railway in 1890. It was abandoned in 1975.

Restored by the museum in 1981, it is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

The museum is on Railroad Ave. SE, part of Snoqualmie’s Historic District.

Rotary Snowplow #10 stands beside the depot building.

It was built in 1907 by Alco-Cooke for the Northern Pacific, and was used to clear snow from the line over Stampede Pass in the Cascade Mountain range.

The Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company (later the Weyerhauser Timber Company), which opened in 1917, milled huge stands of fir, spruce, hemlock and cedar from the nearby mountains.

This wheeled carriage was used by the company to carry 10-15 foot diameter logs through a massive bandsaw at the mill, which was located about a mile north of the township.

The carriage is on display a couple of hundred yards west of the depot building on Railroad Ave. SE.

The Eastern Railway & Lumber Company 3-truck Shay #1 was built by Lima for the Newhouse Mines and Smelter Company in Utah in 1905. It was sold on, eventually ending up on the Eastern Railway & Lumber Company (later S. A. Agnew Lumber Company) line in Centralia, WA, where it operated until the railway was abandoned in 1951.

The locomotive was stored at a sawmill until it was donated to the museum in 1964. It was moved to Snoqualmie in 1969.

The distinguishing characteristic of Shay locomotives is their vertically mounted cylinders, which transfer power through vertical crank shafts and horizontal drive shafts fitted with bevelled gears on the wheels.

Weyerhaeuser Timber Company #6, a 2-6-6-2 compound Mallet articulated, was built by Baldwin in 1928.

It was gifted to the museum by the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company in 1965 and was last operated by the museum in 1974.

Ohio Match Company 2-truck Heisler #4 was built by the Heisler Works for logging on the Burnt Cabin Creek Railroad near Hayden Lake, ID, in 1923. It was later sold to the National Pole and Treating Company near Spokane.

The locomotive last operated in 1958, and was sold to the museum in 1967.

The distinguishing characteristic of Heisler locomotives is their 45° mounted cylinders, which drive a horizontal central axle attached to gear boxes on each wheel set.

Like Shay locomotives, they were very powerful and were actually the fastest geared locomotives in operation.

United States Plywood Corporation #11, a Baldwin built 2-6-6-2 compound Mallet articulated, dates from 1926. It is on display about three-quarters of a mile north of the depot building at the junction of Snoqualmie Parkway and Railroad Ave.

Originally built by Baldwin as a side-tank locomotive for the Ostrander Railway & Timber Company in 1926, it was sold to the Weyerhauser Timber Company in 1939 and operated in Klamath Falls, OR. The side tanks were removed in 1940 and a tender added. It was subsequently sold to several different companies, finally ending up in 1950 at Kosmos Timber Company in Kosmos, WA, which was taken over by the US Plywood Corporation in 1953. It was retired from service in 1960.

The locomotive was placed on display at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1961. In 1974 it passed to Washington State Parks, who leased it to the museum. It was last operated by the museum in 1990. Work began in 2002 to restore it to its 1956 appearance and it went on display in February 2005.