All aboard! For SPSC’s final field trip of the season, we went to the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie; this time our Operations Manager, Corey, wanted to tag along to join 10 of our Seniors.
We were fortunate to have a docent available for the tour—he was so knowledgeable about the amazing trains and pieces of history we were able to see; one of our Seniors is a volunteer at the Museum so he joined us to add extra insight into how things are done as the train cars are restored.
There is an exhibition hall filled with old train cars, steam engines, trolleys, and cabooses, all of which have their own unique stories and history before they arrived at the museum to be restored. One of the train cars that has been fully restored was a chapel car that operated around the country, but spent a significant amount of time in Issaquah! The restoration took years of work and millions of dollars, but it sure is a beauty to behold.
We were lucky enough to explore the workshop where all the trains are restored while the workers were having lunch. There is a trolley car that is being restored that was made in America, but spent its life in Portugal before coming back to the Pacific Northwest to be restored; once completed, it will join the trolley museum in Yakima, WA.
There is a lot of history to see and learn here! We spent about two hours on the tour and then were ready for lunch. Though it started to rain a bit, we enjoyed our lunch outdoors under the Museum canopies—we were grateful to not get wet! While we were finishing up our food, some Seniors asked about going to Snoqualmie Falls—after all, we were so close to the Falls, why not go see them?
We jumped in the van after lunch and headed to Snoqualmie Falls where we spent a wonderful time gazing out at the beauty of the area, and the amazing Falls in front of us—it was such a great end to a very fun day! We certainly enjoyed our ride through time along the rails, and seeing the Falls was the cherry on top of it all!
