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Richard Anderson, the Northwest Railway Museum’s executive director, sends showers of sparks onto the floor while repairing a locomotive engine formerly owned by Weyerhaeuser. The museum is rehabilitating the car, which has a cast-steel frame, at its workshop. After being restored, the engine will likely be displayed with the museum’s wooden caboose, Anderson said. The two operated together in the early 1950s. (Photo by Dan Catchpole)

The sparkling interior of the Northwest Railway Museum’s new Train Shed will house the as many as 24 train cars on public exhibition. The building is a one-mile train ride from the Snoqualmie Depot. (Photo contributed)

Supporters of the Northwest Railway Museum gathered Oct. 2 to dedicate the Train Shed at the museum’s Railway Historic Center.

About 180 people climbed onto the museum’s restored train for the one-mile trip from the Snoqualmie Depot to the center’s campus to the south.

Museum Director Richard Anderson directed the celebration that followed months of work and delays.

Two trees were planted at the event, to signify the importance of the forest industry to the region. At the turn of the century, Fred Weyerhaeuser bought 900,000 acres from James J. Hill, owner of the Great Northern Railway, and then created his timber company.

A Douglas fir was dedicated and planted by dignitaries attending the event. A Western red cedar was dedicated by the children in the group as a symbol of the future.

The Train Shed will eventually serve as the museum’s main exhibition building. With 1,200 feet of track in the semiconditioned building, it can hold as many as 24 train cars and other exhibits.

It could be a “game changer” for the museum, and help it become a regional, even national draw, Anderson said.

Museum officials had hoped to hold some events in the building for Railroad Days in August, but construction supply problems held the project up for nearly six months.

Northwest Railway Museum officials are reaching out to the public to help win a $70,000 grant to restore its Chapel Car. The registered historic landmark was used for 50 years by the American Baptist Church around Puget Sound, including a week in North Bend in 1917. (Photo by Dan Catchpole)

NEW — 10:35 a.m. April 15, 2010

The Northwest Railway Museum’s Chapel Car is among 25 projects that could receive part of $1 million for Puget Sound-area historic restoration work. The money is part of Partners in Preservation, a program run by American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

American Express has pledged $5.5 million over a five year period toward preserving historic places throughout the United States.

This year, 25 projects in the Puget Sound area are vying for a grant. The amount will depend on the project’s needs, which range between $65,000 and $125,000. The rest of the $1 million will be divided among the other projects.

The Northwest Railway Museum needs $70,000 to restore one of it’s prized possessions — the Chapel Car, a registered historic landmark — to its 1917 state, when it spent a week in North Bend spreading the message of the American Baptist Church.

The museum is taking this as an opportunity to engage the public in the short term and long term.

To win the grant, the museum needs people to vote for its project on the Partners in Preservation Web site, but in the far larger view, it needs to engage the public for its existence.

“It’s fundamental; without the involvement of the community, the museum’s irrelevant,” museum director Richard Anderson said.

Dan Catchpole: 392-6434, ext. 246, or editor@snovalleystar.com.

The Messenger of Peace chapel car doesn’t look like a church on rails.

The 100-plus year old train car sits in the Northwest Railway Museum’s preservation center, with tape on its windows and plywood over some sections. Inside the train car, the pews and altar are missing. Like many trains in the museum’s collection, the state of the chapel car can only be described as dilapidated, but one day the Messenger of Peace will be the most significant train car at the museum. 

On March 26, the King County Landmarks Commission unanimously approved adding the Messenger of Peace to the county’s list of landmarks. The train car has already been added to the National Register of Historic Sites. 

The King County Landmarks Commission and others meet in the preservation center of the Northwest Railway Museum to approve the nomination of the Messenger of Peace chapel car, pictured in the background, to the list of county landmarks.

The train car joined the museum’s collection in 2007, when its owner approached the railway museum to take the chapel car. 

Museum CEO Richard Anderson learned about chapel cars in the 1990s. When he first heard about the rolling churches, he thought that someone was trying to pull his leg. But what he discovered was that, around the turn of the century, Baptists, Episcopalians and Catholics all operated chapel cars to spread their religions to the less-churched parts of the country.

The Messenger of Peace was built in 1898 and was one of the Baptist chapel cars. Today, it is one of only three cars known to still exist. The train car traveled all over the country, but it spent a significant amount of time in Washington state and King County. The train car’s logbook shows that it stopped in North Bend in March 1917 and in Issaquah that same year. The log indicates that the weather in North Bend wasn’t great, but the services were well-attended.

The car was deconsecrated in 1948 as the need for traveling churches declined. It became the Ritz Limited Café for a time in Snohomish, after the Baptist church transferred possession of the car on the condition that alcohol not be served. The brass pulpit of the train went to Everett’s First Methodist Church, where it still stands. For a while, the car was a cottage, and then it fell into disrepair, until Art Hodgins donated it to the museum.

Emergency work had to be done to keep the train from collapsing in on itself from damage to its structure, caused by a 1941 switching accident and the move to the museum via truck. Now the train will become the focus of restoration work at the museum’s preservation center.

“I have no doubt that the chapel car will be the most significant piece in our collection,” Anderson told the landmarks commission.

To help restore the Messenger of Peace, the museum hired Glenn Guerra, a leading expert on wooden rail cars. Guerra lives in Wisconsin and consults with museums across the country on train preservation issues. A 4Culture grant from King County is paying for Guerra’s services on the train restoration project.

In a discussion, about plans for reconstructing the train at the landmarks commission meeting, Guerra advised that significant portions of the train’s wooden exterior would need to be replaced. He said that the museum should focus its preservation efforts on the train car’s interior. He said that the interior would be what the public sees. 

Anderson was asked if the chapel car could be used for weddings once it is restored.

“Absolutely,” Anderson answered.

He said that the museum acquired over 2,000 pages of notes from a researcher who wrote a book about chapel cars, and that the notes would help the museum to restore the Messenger of Peace.

“I feel, no question, that this qualifies as a landmark,” said Landmarks Commissioner Robert Weaver, a Seattle based historic building preservation consultant.

Railroad tracks are, in fact, uninsurable — a fact that threatens to put the Northwest Railway Museum in a financial bind. 

When the Snoqualmie River crested in the Jan. 7 flood, it covered about two miles of railroad tracks and two railroad bridges in downtown Snoqualmie. The damage caused by the flood to the museum is estimated at about $100,000.

An antique train sits in water during last month’s flood.

Most of the damage was caused by water eroding the base that the track sits on.

The museum is now faced with the task of getting enough money to fix the tracks so that its train can run in April when the museum’s train-ride season begins. 

“We have to have the repairs completed before April, so we can start running trains on the weekends,” said Richard Anderson, the museum’s executive director.  

Since the tracks could not be insured, search for repair money has challenged the museum, especially considering current economic conditions.

“We will pay for the repairs by whatever means possible,” Anderson said.

Anderson said that the museum was applying for emergency grants, but many of the organizations that in the past would have lent a helping hand to the museum have seen their own endowments lose 30-40 percent of their values. 

“A number of organizations aren’t giving money for anything and are having trouble meeting the obligations they have already made,” Anderson said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides loans and assistance in the wake of disasters like the flooding in Snoqualmie, may provide some funding for the repairs. But getting FEMA funds may be difficult because the statutes governing FEMA do not generally extend federal aid to organizations like the museum.

Whether the museum receives aid from FEMA will depend on how the repair work is characterized. Federal law does not allow museums to receive funding for permanent repairs, but some of the work may be deemed protective measures, which do get funded. Another source of revenue might be a loan from the small business administration. 

In April of 2008, the museum finally finished repairing tracks damaged by the 2006 flood. Now, less than a year later, new repairs are needed. The reason it took so long to get the repairs done after the 2006 flood was that funding for the work was not received until early 2008, Anderson said. 

The repairs needed to make the track usable by the museum’s train cannot wait. Anderson said that the urgent repairs would begin in about two weeks. The museum’s survival depends on its ability to generate revenue from the train trips between North Bend and Snoqualmie Falls, and it’s not just the museum that could suffer. Many downtown businesses depend on tourists, who come to the area to ride the trains or visit the railroad museum.

In comparison to past floods that have damaged the museum tracks, this one is shaping up to be the worst. 

“This was the deepest flood we’ve ever experienced at the museum,” Anderson said. 

Damage to the tracks in 2006 amounted to about $80,000, compared with the $100,000 in damages that the museum now has to deal with. 

Anderson finds it ironic that previous washouts probably involved the loss of more track-bed material than the 2009 flood. But those washouts were isolated to several specific areas, whereas this year the washouts are more widespread.

“It can be more expensive to fix little problems in more areas than to replace a large amount of material,” Anderson said. 

The damage to the tracks even stranded the museum train in Snoqualmie. The washouts prevent it from using the tracks to get to the museum’s train shop.

Anderson noted that the washouts were particularly bad in the area of the Meadowbrook Farm near the milk barn. He said that the washout there was five feet deep and that the flood had dislodged fist-sized stones from the train tracks’ base.

Despite its problems, the museum is still moving forward with plans to build a new facility to showcase restored trains, Anderson said.  

Reach reporter Michael Bayless Rowe at mrowe@snovalleystar.com or 392-6434, ext. 248.

Construction on the Northwest Railway Museum’s exhibit hall is tentatively scheduled to start this spring. 

The 25,000-square-foot building project will offer space for the railway museum to preserve its train collection.

“Initially, this project offers us a way to get critically endangered objects, such as the 1898-built railway chapel car inside and protected from the outdoor environment,” said Richard Anderson, the museum’s executive director.

A glimpse of what the Railway History Museum could look like.

Anderson noted that about a third of the museum’s collection is constructed of wood, which is vulnerable to exposure to the elements.

Anderson said that the new building will also serve as a showcase for the museum’s collection, but this will take time.

“(The) primary and ultimate purpose (of the building) is as an exhibit gallery. Initially, only short, guided tours to small groups will be offered. When a restroom is constructed and some additional objects are placed on exhibit, it will be open regular hours,” Anderson said.

The new exhibit hall will display railroad artifacts, including various coaches and locomotives from the museum collection. The building will house four separate tracks with platform access to different trains for museum visitors to explore the history of trains and railroads.  

The design of the exhibit hall has been finished and the project will go to bid early in 2009. The start date of construction depends upon which contractor wins the contract in the competitive bidding process, Anderson said.

The building project will take about a year to construct. In addition to preserving the museum’s collection, the new building will feature sustainable building elements such as an automated cooling system that uses outside air and controlled natural lighting in the exhibit space. 

The overall cost of the project is estimated between $2.2 and $4 million dollars. The cost is dependent on a number of variables, Anderson said. 

The museum has secured $2.6 million in funding, with contributions coming from 4Culture, The Seattle Foundation, the McEachern Charitable Trust, Capital Projects for Washington’s Heritage, the Schwab Charitable Fund, and the TEA-21 enhancements program. The museum is seeking donations for the building project at its Web site at www.trainmuseum.org. 

Reach reporter Michael Bayless Rowe at mrowe@snovalleystar.com or 392-6434.