Article & Photos By Gordon Sandell

When the Bellingham Railway Museum closed a few years ago, among the items that the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie acquired was a Lionel O gauge layout, which sat unused for some time.

Over the last few years, the 4-D O Gauge Hi-Railers Modular Group (with a modest financial contribution from 4-D) has been helping the Museum get it back into running order. Members of the Group have got all three tracks operational, repaired some of the locomotives and rolling stock that came with the layout, and restored many of the accessories to running order, although sadly it has since suffered from an attack of vandalism.

Members of the Group have also supported the Museum by running the layout on days when the layout is operating. The layout is mostly used by the Museum in conjunction with the Days Out with Thomas that they run several times a year, and Group Members have also provided suitable Lionel “Thomas the Tank Engine” locomotives and cars to run on those occasions.

For the Days Out with Thomas, the train, with Thomas at the front (and a diesel locomotive at the rear), leaves the Snoqualmie Depot, and arrives at the Museum a few minutes later. The families can then go through a number of Thomas-related activities (of which the layout is one), and then return on the next train to the Snoqualmie Depot.

As you can see in the pictures, we had quite a few interested children. Many of them were very knowledgeable about the Thomas stories, and could recognize the locomotives and cars by name. Hopefully some proportion of them will go on to run Thomas models and eventually become railroad modelers. Maybe there are even a few future MMRs amongst them!

Gordon