Engineer and daughter on NP locomotiveReconstruction of North Bend Way signals and crossing in 2001Snoqualmie Depot circa 1896Eccentric crank on locomotive 11Conservation and Restoration Center, July 2006

Welcome to the Northwest Railway Museum

DSC 0779We invite you to travel to Snoqualmie where you can - Visit a Victorian depot. Learn how the railway changed Washington and influenced settlement. See and feel the excitement of a working railroad. Experience what travel was like before Interstate highways. Hear all the bells and whistles. Travel back in time. See the sights and all the sites. Shop in a book store and find a new book. Enjoy it for the pure spectacle!

Depot hours: 10am - 5pm, 7 days a week

Price: No admission charge to visit the depot and grounds.

Riding the Train:The train runs Saturdays and Sundays, April through the end of October.

Museum news

Day Out With Thomas Tickets Now On Sale for Members

Day Out With Thomas tickets went on sale beginning March 7th for Northwest Railway Museum members.  Members can purchase advance tickets by mail, online, or by phone.  Starting March 14th members can purchase tickets in person.  Tickets will go on sale to the general public April 7th, 2014.

Members will receive a special price of only $20 per ticket for orders received by April 7th.  Tickets for the general public are $23 per ticket.  To order online please visit the Day Out With Thomas section of our webpage.  If you would like to become a member please visit our membership section.

Volunteer Opportunity: Docent Program

An integral part of the visitor experience at the Northwest Railway Museum, docents lead visitors through an exploration of the Museum; interpreting the historic Snoqualmie Depot, the Train Shed Exhibit Building, and the scenic train ride. They help visitors understand how the railroad changed everything. This spring the Museum will be holding its third annual Docent Training Program.

Museum docents go through a multi-week training program, learning how to be an effective guide and how to share the Museum with the public. Training includes classroom instruction, observation and practice presentations. To become a docent, no previous experience is required. The Museum provides training to all docents and encourages volunteers of all backgrounds to apply.

2014 Training Dates: 
Info Day – March 29th @ 10am 
Day 1 – April 12th @ 12:30 
Day 2 – April 19th @ 10am 
Day 3 – May 3rd or 4th @ 10am 
"Ride alongs" during rest of May 
Day 4 – Sundays in June

For more information visit: 
If you are interested in becoming a docent please contact Cristy Lake, Volunteer Coordinator at 425.888.3030 ext. 7206.

Meet Peggy Barchi

The Northwest Railway Museum welcomes a new Marketing & Events Manager, Peggy Barchi. The position’s key responsibilities include promotion of all Museum programs including regular season train rides, the Tour Package program, Day Out With Thomas the Tank Engine™, Halloween Train, and Santa Train®. The Marketing & Events Manager also manages Snoqualmie Railroad Days, working with a dedicated group of local volunteers to insure the success of that important town festival.
 
Peggy comes to the Museum from Fort Nisqually Living History Museum in Tacoma, where she was the Events’ and Volunteer Coordinator for over 10 years. Besides organizing events and volunteers, she worked on educational demonstrations such as Oregon Trail hikes, butter making, and 19th Century laundry techniques; taught classes on “Before There Were Video Games,” developed and maintained exhibits, worked on promoting the museum and its programming and was head chicken wrangler for the fort’s livestock! She continues to edit the Fort Nisqually Foundation’s tri-yearly magazine “Occurrences – Journal of Northwest History.”

Click here to read the full story on the Museum's blog.


New Tools of the Trade

Many skilled professionals will agree: having the right tool for the task is worth at least half the effort.  And so it applies to railroad cars and locomotives, but the tools are a little bigger than most people are accustomed to. 

Recently, with funding from a heritage 4Culture fixed asset grant, the Northwest Railway Museum added a power feeder and large table saw to the tool inventory. These acquisitions improve safety and efficiency for collections care efforts performed in the Conservation and Restoration Center.

Click here to read the full story on the Museum's blog.

Bridging the Gap

November 12, 2013- Bridges are vitally important to railroads.  They allow trains to cross rivers and gullies, swamps and streams, roads and highways, and sometimes other railroads, too.  It was evolving bridge technology that allowed steel bridges to be built in remote areas of the west, and for the train and locomotive mass to rise dramatically.

The Northwest Railway Museum has a collection of bridges representative of those that transformed the west.  Timber trestles, open and ballasted decks, a pin connected truss and even a voided-slab concrete span are all critical structures on the Museum's railroad.  All these structures are inspected annually by an independent railroad bridge inspector, and periodically by Museum staff.

Click here to read the full story on the Museum's blog.

A Floor For Coach 218

Rehabilitation of coach 218 is involving nearly every aspect of the car. This fall, the focus has been returning the floor to its former grandeur. The solid maple floor was badly deteriorated and the decision to completely replace it was made early in the project.  The completed floor is now ready to receive its first guests! Click here to read the full story on the Museum's blog.

Chapel Car 5 Messenger of Peace rehabilitation

21 December 2012 - Rehabilitation of chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace achieved substantial completion this month. While some details remain to be funded and completed, all major carbody and interior work has been completed. The truck has been set upon trucks (wheels, bearings and brakes) and platform steps have been applied to both ends of the car. The last major element was lowering the car onto trucks as reported on the Museum's blog.

Remaining rehabilitation work includes fabrication and installation of platform railings, interior lighting, 34 pews, an organ, lecturn, roll top desk and settee. This work will proceed as funding allows.

Rehabilitation of this National Treasure began in late 2010. More that 15,000 person hours have been invested in the project with generous support from Save America's Treasures, Partners in Preservation (National Trust for Historic Preservation and the American Express Foundation), 4Culture, Capital Projects for Washington's Heritage and the Schwab Fund for Charitable Giving. A recent Seattle Times article gave an overview and included several new photos.

If you would like to support the chapel car 5 rehabilitation with a donation, please click here to visit our partner Click and Pledge's page for the Northwest Railway Museum.

ChapelCarWithTrucks

Subscribe to the Museum's E-Newsletter

20 January 2012 - Learn about last minute opportunities, new programs, exciting news and more! The Northwest Railway Museum has joined with ConstantContact to offer you a safe and secure way to subscribe. Rest assured, the Museum will never share or sell your address, and you will only receive occasional emails - typically two or three per month in the summer, and one per month in the winter. And if you decide you no longer wish to receive mail, a simple click on "unsubscribe" will remove your name and address from the list. (Sorry, but you may need to disable your pop up blocker to complete the registration process.)

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Commercial photography restrictions

A permit is required for all commercial photography at the Northwest Railway Museum. This includes all individual and family portrait sessions where a photographer is hired to perform the work. The permit is available for purchase at the Depot Bookstore and allows the photographer to shoot for 90 minutes on Museum grounds. The cost is $50. Larger projects will require a more extensive evaluation - please respect the Museum's private property and the immense cost of maintaining the collection and operating programs. Contact the bookstore clerk for more information: (425) 888 - 3030 x 7202 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Click here to view archived news

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