Northwest Railway Museum in Win-Win Land Deal

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The Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie has long been know as an advocate for railroad history and preservation. That task will become easier in the future, now that they have swapped a four-acre parcel near a county-owned park for a four-acre parcel right next door to their newly-built Conservation & Restoration Center.

Essentially this was a win-win for everyone involved.

One of the great things this does is it will move much of the Museum's stored equipment indoors out of the elements. This includes the Union Pacific 529 2-8-0 Baldwin steam engine, a Milwaukee Road box car, a Shay locomotive, and countless other examples of rolling stock. In a double-speaking little nugget of commentary, Snoqualmie's mayor Matt Larson says the move "will substantially change downtown Snoqualmie."

"Getting the trains indoors will keep them from deteriorating further."

Indeed, this is true. This statement also appears to be short hand for "I like trains, but some of our residents think they're an eyesore and hate looking at them every day." The Northwest Railway Museum started in 1957, years before many who have mounted land-use battles with them were even born. Young transplants to the sprawling Snoqualmie Ridge subdivision of the city sometimes don't appreciate the old equipment for what it is - a history marker of the Northwest's industrial past. Much of it sits in view of State Route 202, and has done so since my days of living nearby in the late 1960s. The Musuem's Restoration Center - known as the CRC - was embroiled in a land battle with neighbors who saw the facility as a deficit to their lifestyle; this added a few years to the project, but thankfully the CRC was completed and occupied in 2006.

It's great to see this group getting what it needs to preserve railroad history in the area. The towns and hills around it were once teaming with rail; The Milwaukee Road ran close to this former Northern Pacific line, and the few miles of track the Museum owns is now all that remains in this part of the county. It's essentially a land-locked railroad, since the Milwaukee tracks are all gone and the line west of Snoqualmie Falls was abandoned in the 1970s.

This land deal will help them maintain what's left and teach people the historic importance of rail here.