By Bill Messecar, Photos By John Thompson
Weeks of planning between two 4D Board members, Kurt Laidlaw and Bob Kenworthy and the staff at the NW Railroad Museum near Snoqualmie culminated in a day 4D attendees won’t forget. It started with a train ride from the old NP depot at North Bend to the museum in beautiful spring weather. We divided into groups to attend a clinic given by Greg Wright MMR, a tour of the museum Lionel and HO layouts and a behind the scenes visit to the museum restoration shop where we saw several engines/carts being restored. The museum staff also discussed their archives of equipment blueprints and drawings. There were two more opportunities for a layout or shop visit or attend Burr Stewart’s enjoyable clinics on videography of his layout and sage advice on achieving your goals in layout building. Burr has his own YouTube channel so you can check out those great videos.
At noon we then took a 30-minute lunch break to enjoy drinks and a delicious box lunch. Bill Messecar 4D Superintendent led the 4D Annual Meeting where he introduced the 4D Superintendent elect Mike Stepner as well as the current 4D BOD members. After the meeting we had a chance to explore the many museum exhibits and then boarded our train for the return journey to North Bend. To complete a great day of Model Railroading we had the opportunity to see four excellent layouts in the area.
If you were not able to make the spring meet this year—be sure to attend in 2025. It’s a great opportunity to meet local modelers and have a train filled day. This sort of event is one of the many benefits offered for your NMRA membership. Hope to see you next year.
Bill
4D Superintendent
It was a great day out and a joy to see the inside of the restoration shop, a place off limits to the public at large. Restoration of an all wooden Pullman car is well advanced and very nice to see.
The museum itself resides the skeleton of a Seattle Interurban car that deserves to be restored to some operational condition.
So much to be done but progress is being made.
Hopefully the planned roundhouse will be constructed in the near future.
Looking forward to next year’s Spring Meet.
A big thank you to Bob and Kurt for setting this up. Also thank you to the museum staff and the layout hosts. It was a very enjoyable day.
I’m very impressed with the progress the museum has made over the past few years. Hopefully our two groups can continue to work together in the future.