Sound Transit Urged to Try Again

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels told Sound Transit to try again in 2008 in their efforts to get buy in for future transit projects, stating that younger voters in the coming year will better understand the motives of the Authority.

Like all us current voters are decrepit and don't understand the regional value of a good train...

New Track: Chehalis To Blakeslee

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It's not every day that you hear of a railroad actually adding tracks in this State. This project essentially ties three railroads to together, in an effort to reduce congestion in the rail traffic coming out of Grays Harbor County on the Puget Sound and Pacific Railroad. BNSF and Tacoma Rail are also named in this project.

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.

Chance for Snohomish Dinner Train is Looking Better

With the Spirit Of Washington Dinner Train currently stored in Battle Ground WA, the Seattle Times today reported that it has a better than average chance of once again gracing the rails of East King County and Snohomish County. The Dinner Train's owner thinks this is a great option.

"We have no intention of running the dinner train on someone else's railroad," says Eric Temple from the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train, citing issues with the relationship they had with Tacoma Rail in running the train out to Lake Kapowsin from the Tacoma Dome. Mr. Temple is also "encouraged" about the latest news that the Port Of Seattle is planning to buy the entire Woodinville Subdivision from BNSF. Port Of Seattle ownership of the line would allow the Temple family's Columbia Basin Railroad bid on operating the northern part of the line from Snohomish to Woodinville, which would retain tracks in the deal. The southern part, from Woodinville to Renton, would lose its tracks in lieu of a rail trail with the potential for future expansion. As it turns out, Mr. Temple had been negotiating to take over operations of the northern portion anyway, prior to moving the Dinner Train to Tacoma, but those negotiations didn't pan out at the time. He is not shy about describing experience he had with Tacoma Rail and after a series of factors he chose to end the run.

I see a lot of benefits in another Dinner Train running, this time between Snohomish and Woodinville. I'm sure Columbia Winery would be thrilled to have the visitors back. Plus, there is the reverse benefit of Snohomish being a "Antique Town" for those coming up from Woodinville. And what about Woodinville Village? This new development is literally within walking or shuttle distance of the tracks. Seems to me there could be an incredible tie-in here.

This story is just too good to put in bed!

Voters Tow "Roads & Rails" to The Dead Line

Proposition 1 - regionally known as the "Roads and Rails Plan" - was resoundingly rejected by voters in Pierce, King and Snohomish Counties. The plan was massive and would have provided money - through taxation - for road projects in three counties plus light rail to Lynnwood, Redmond, and Tacoma.

But the public message back to the State was, "it asked for too much at once, and asked for more when Sound Transit hasn't even finished the first segment of light rail yet."

For the record, I voted yes on Proposition 1. I saw it as a bittersweet opportunity to move forward in our efforts to get around the Puget Sound region more easily. But most voters disagreed in more ways than one. Overall they sent a message larger than just this measure; if you look at how people voted on other ballot items, the voting trend we saw on Tuesday said, "Use the money we've already given you, and keep your hands off our wallets." Not only did the public say no to several tax measures, but they also made it harder for the lawmakers to raise taxes without public input. There was a tightening of belts region-wide.

Danny Westneat from the Seattle Times had a decent editorial on the subject, saying we need to look at our transportation issues in smaller doses. "But big new stuff?" he asks. "Forget it. It costs too much. And there's too little trust." That lack of trust appears to come from the notion that Olympia is not wisely using what is already given to them.

So what happens now? Olympia has said they will look to other funding for vital projects, and we may see a gas tax increase (for which I'm not surprised). Eastside developers will continue developing along the proposed light rail corridor despite this vote. This also may put the Woodinville Subdivision back in play, as a way to get transit to the Eastside without spending on a entirely new line.

Although I voted yes for Prop 1, I am now breathing a sigh of relief that lawmakers have to go back and try again.

Northern Columbia Basin Railroad Project

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Here's a refreshing look at how rail and its multiple uses is treated in other parts of Washington. This is a big project, based in and around Moses Lake WA. The plan's focus is to attract rail-borne business to the area and to repair the otherwise deteriorating "physical plant" in use today. All key players - Grant County, Columbia Basin Railroad, BNSF, City of Moses Lake - all agree the project should move forward, which is something I'm not accustomed to seeing from where I sit in Western WA. "Out here on The Coast" - as it's referred to from the Inland Empire - one or two people can hold up an entire project like this, using litigious or otherwise irritating means for the sole purpose of getting their way. While some of the players in the Basin Project do differ in opinion on how the new lines should look, they all seem to want the same result. Breathe in, breathe out. Ahhhh...

Moses Lake was once a Northern Pacific town. It is now served by the Columbia Basin Railroad. It's also home to the ginormous Grant County International Airport, which is the former Larson Air Force Base closed by the military in the mid 1960s. A big portion of the railroad project would provide better track to GCIA for a container facility.

Of course, even in a place where everyone can at least agree that something should be done (unlike Seattle), there are differing opinions on where the trains should run. The "Citizens Option," which would have run trains away from town and over a former NP branch line, was brought up, researched by the State, and rejected as too difficult to acquire and build since there were many homes and roads already built on top of the abandoned right-of-way.

Check out the Port of Moses Lake's official page on the project; it has huge PDFs of maps etc. to give you an idea of what's needed and what's happening:

http://www.portofmoseslake.com/Northern%20Columbia%20Basin%20Railroad%20Project.htm

This will be one to watch, because when complete it allows Moses Lake to expand its reach in the region, providing jobs and products. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Easton WA - Then and Now

©1980 Blair Kooistra
Mr. Blair Kooistra is a fellow railfan who has a good eye for machinery. He admits to putting worthy effort into even the simplest of railroading photos that he uploads. His collection of photographs online is nothing short of beautiful.

Blair was also on-hand to see the final hours of the Milwaukee Road in Washington when he took this simple photo in Easton WA on March 14, 1980. After that the lines in-state were either abandoned or sold to the Burlington Northern. In this photo you will see a long line of motive power, likely with many of the engines "dead in tow" to the Milwaukee's lines east of Montana. With Easton being within 70 miles of my home, I thought it would be fun to try duplicating Blair's photo almost 28 years later.

Turns out it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.

My sons and I headed to Cabin Creek Rd. just south of downtown Easton and crossed the BNSF Mainline that still runs through. The Milwaukee Road, in this part of the state, has been replaced by the Iron Horse State Park which runs from North Bend to the Columbia River; it ran a few steps south of the BN at that time. This made Easton a true railroader's town. David and I got out of the truck with Blair's photo and started matching up landmarks. Much had changed and it didn't help that clouds were obscuring the hills to the north. As David and I were scratching our heads trying to find the right angle, to our fortune a woman was crossing the tracks and asked if we were waiting for the train. I told her what we were doing and she asked to see the photo. "I've lived in Easton all my life, and live in the oldest house in town." How cool is that? Right away she found the Tavern; it is to the right of the loco in the original photo with a centered chimney. In my photo below it has a red roof. She also showed us that the railroad crossing signs in Blair's photo were gone and that the fire station now had a new roof.

Then and Now Mission completed, even if my current-day photo lacks the sizzle of the original. But now the mystery starts. In Blair's photo it looks like the Milwaukee was running on Burlington Northern trackage at the time, based on what I saw yesterday. Could this be? Was there possibly one of the many derailments that plagued the MILW towards the end that sent these engines to BN tracks? Or did the Milwaukee in fact run in a different place that I miscalculated? That is a mystery that can be solved by someone who knows the route far better than me.

After visiting Easton, we headed to South Cle Elum for a photo shoot with a MILW bayside caboose. It was a great day following in the footsteps of The Road!