Northwest Railway Museum

The Northwest Railway Museum (NRM) is a railroad museum in Snoqualmie, King County, Washington. It incorporates a heritage railway, historic depot, exhibit hall, library, and collection care center, and serves more than 130,000 visitors per year.

The heritage railway incorporates five miles of the line constructed in 1889 by the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway (SLS&E), which was part of Seattle's response to the Northern Pacific selecting Tacoma as their western terminus. The SLS&E was later purchased by the Northern Pacific.

Snoqualmie depot
The Snoqualmie depot was built in 1890 by the SLS&E. The depot is an example of a building that was in nearly every community across the nation. Good architecture was good advertising and enhanced company pride. The station once served as the terminal for this early recreation area. An atypical design was the result of the need for a rural combined freight-passenger depot, however, one with lavish decorations to reflect the holiday spirit of vacationers from Seattle. Visitors came to enjoy hunting and fishing, as well as excursions to Snoqualmie Falls.

The station is a large frame building about 125 by with a generous 9 ft eaves. A bay window features the telegrapher's office. The semicircular north end stands out in this design. The eaves are supported by wooden pillars and diagonal braces and scroll work decorates the intersection of the braces with the eaves and the pillars. The current structure was modified from the original, in which the bay window continued up through the roof and formed an octagonal tower a full story in height. A two sash window with a semicircular upper sash appeared on each face of the tower and a prominent cornice separated the tower body from the steeply pitched roof. The roof was decorated with fancy butt shingles and capped with a finial. A large swept dormer was placed in the southern part of the main structure above the freight section, Cast iron cresting and fancy butt shingles decorated the roof of both the main body and the transverse dormer. The freight dock, was wider originally and ran the length of the entire rear third of the station, is now a small porch in front of a single sliding freight door.

The Snoqualmie depot is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, ID #74001963.

Museum
The Northwest Railway Museum was founded in 1957 as the Puget Sound Railway Historical Association. As part of a general reorganization, the museum took its current name in September 1999. The mission of the organization is to develop and operate an outstanding railway museum where the public can see and understand the role of railroads in the development of the Pacific Northwest, and experience the excitement of a working railroad.

The museum's collection also includes a variety of railway cars and locomotives that document the development of the railway in Washington from the 1880s through the 1990s, including the Messenger of Peace Chapel Car which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It also includes a 3,000-volume library and archives that focus on the history of railroads in the Northwest and on technical and other engineering aspects of railroading.

Passenger cars
The Northwest Railway Museum maintains 18 passenger cars of various time periods, manufactured between 1881 and 1998. Most of these cars were built by either Barney and Smith, the St. Louis Car Company, or Pullman. Several of the passenger cars operate with one or both of the museum's 2 RS4-TCs and/or Northern Pacific 924 for excursion service on the Snoqualmie Valley Railroad.

Freight, industrial, and maintenance of way equipment
The museum owns a total of 39 other railway equipment artifacts in various forms, previously operating for a wide variety of railroads. While not included as historic equipment, there is also the various pieces of equipment used to maintain the railway, some of which dates as far back as the 1950s.

Heritage railroad
The Northwest Railway Museum operates a heritage railroad called the Snoqualmie Valley Railroad. This 5 mi route allows museum visitors to experience a train excursion aboard antique railroad coaches dating to 1915 and earlier. Trains are scheduled either Saturday, or Saturday and Sunday depending on the time of year, with chartered or special trains on various days. The railroad typically carries over 60,000 passengers per year. The railroad hosts several special events, such as the Day Out with Thomas event every July. Other events include Christmas & Halloween trains, wine tasting specials, and chartered excursions such as educational trains and corporate events.

Railway History Center
In August 2006 the Museum dedicated the new Conservation and Restoration Center (CRC), phase one of the Railway History Center. The CRC is a place to perform repairs and restoration work on the museum's different pieces of equipment, including locomotives, passenger cars, and freight cars. It features 8200 sqft, two full-length inspection pits, and is used to perform many functions once conducted in railroad backshops. A full assortment of carpentry and machining equipment allows the museum to produce parts that have been out of production since the 1960s.