Saturday, Oct. 8. Former Railroad Employee’s Luncheon.

A gathering of former Milwaukee Road employees with a luncheon at the depot.  This is a good time to reunite with your former Milwaukee Road friends. An opportunity for oral history interviews and recording will be made to preserve railroad history. Watch this website at www.milwelectric.org for more information and updates.

The Cascade Rail Foundation gets together with volunteers and the public from the surrounding community every year to enjoy a potluck picnic, conversation, and name the year’s recipient for the “Volunteer of the Year” Award. And you are invited to attend!

Watch for upcoming details, but mark your calendar now.

New Board Member

We welcome Joseph Farnik to the CRF board of directors.  Joseph lives in the Cle Elum area and has a background in carpentry and as a general contractor.

Depot Displays

We’ve been working with Washington State Parks to develop some new displays for the museum area of the depot in South Cle Elum.  This project has been going on for awhile, with various twists, turns, ups, and downs.  While earlier iterations of the panels broadly covered the full history of the Milwaukee Road as a transcontinental railroad, they are being revised to focus more on South Cle Elum and the depot.  If all goes according to plan, the new displays should be installed by July.

Some of the displays currently in the depot will be relocated to a new exhibit space that will be established in the former freight room of the depot.

Archive

Our first archive work party in Burien was very productive.  Thank you to Fred High, Gary Pember, Mark Borleske, and Rick Beaber for diving into the inventory work.  We are meeting the third Thursday of each month.  The next work party will be April 21.  Contact Paul Krueger at kruegerp@nwlink if you’d like to help out.

The remodeling of the Pacific Northwest Railroad Archive building is continuing.  Most of the preliminary building modifications should be complete by the end of May.

2011 Events

July 3 & 4 –  Mountains to Sound Greenway Anniversary March

CRF will be hosting the Mountains to Sound Greenway 20th anniversary march participants on their way from Ellensburg to Seattle. Participants will camp in the South Cle Elum rail yard the night of July 3^rd.  We plan to have the depot open so they can enjoy the exhibits during their stay.  If you’d like to be part of the march, contact Mountains to Sound Greenway to register.

July 9 – Rails to Ales Brewfest

As mentioned in previous updates, the annual Rails to Ales Brewfest will be held at the South Cle Elum rail yard on July 9.  The bands and some of the brewers have been announced. Tickets are $20 in advance. Check out the Brewfest web site for more information.  We need both guests and volunteers for the event.

September 13 – Annual Potluck Picnic & Milwaukee Road Employees Dinner

Our annual potluck picnic for CRF volunteers and friends is scheduled for the afternoon of September 13. After the picnic, we are planning our first Milwaukee Road employees dinner to honor the men and women who made the history of the railroad happen.  We are hoping that attendees will let us record their memories of working on the railroad.  Stay tuned for more details.

September 24 & 25 – Milwaukee Modeler’s Meet

Our annual fall meet features a display of Milwaukee Road models on Saturday morning as well as presentations on model, prototype and historic Milwaukee Road topics. The location has not been finalized yet, but it will be in western Washington again.

In addition to these planned events, we are in the early stages of talking to the Town of South Cle Elum about participating in a centennial celebration of South Cle Elum.  If this event takes place, it would likely happen in August.  Stay tuned for more information about that.

Planned projects

At the March board meeting, the board identified the following projects we will work on implementing this year:

Rib side caboose restoration – The first phase of this project will include fabricating new windows and doors and repainting the exterior.

Line side signals – These signals are currently installed next to the trail.  This year, we plan to run wires from the signals located on the trail to the depot so they can be lighted.

Foster Park – The area just west of the depot was once landscaped and informally named Foster Park.  Historic photos suggest this landscaping may have been removed when the substation was built, but it was a lawn area afterwards.  We plan to clean up this area and restore it to look the way it did after the substation was completed.  We are also discussing with State Parks the possibility of making the fenced area around the substation smaller.

Gateway at Milwaukee Avenue and 6^th Street – The intersection of Milwaukee Avenue and 6^th Street is the main entry for people driving to the South Cle Elum Rail Yard.  This project would clean up the corner and install a sign welcoming people to the historic district and to Iron Horse State Park.

Bungalow No. 1 (Douglas Munro home) – We are developing a plan to acquire Bungalow No.1.  The bungalow would be rehabilitated to provide as additional exhibit space.  It would likely also become home to the CRF reference library and also be used for artifact storage.  Bungalow No. 1, in addition to having significance as a historic railroad structure, is also historically significant as the boyhood home of Douglas Munro.

Douglas Munro, son of substation operator James Munro, joined the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II.  He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Matanikau River, Guadalcanal on September 27, 1942.  Munro took charge of the dozen craft which helped evacuate the surrounded elements of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines.  Shortly after the last marine got on board, Munro was shot and killed by enemy fire.  He is the only Coast Guardsman to have been awarded the Medal of Honor.

If we are successful in acquiring the bungalow, the primary Douglas Munro exhibit at the rail yard would be moved there from the depot and improved.  We would also develop an exhibit at the bungalow about Milwaukee Road employees and their families.

We will need volunteers to help us complete these projects.  If you have skills or information you’d like to contribute, please contact us.

The 2010 Milwaukee Road Modelers meet will be held August 27-29 at the Cedar River Watershed Education Facility near North Bend, WA.

Admission is $10 per day.  Pre-register for both Saturday and Sunday for $15.  The tour on Friday is an additional $10. Download the registration form here:

"2010 Cascade Rail Foundation’s Milwaukee Road Modelers Meet Registration Form"

The planned program is described below.

Friday, August 27th: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM.

Cedar River watershed tour of the Milwaukee Road Right of Way

Bring your own lunch and arrive at 9:30, tour ends at 4:00.  A history tour of the watershed, stops at bridges, Cedar River yard and remaining Milwaukee Road structures.  Limit is 21.  Contact David Newcomb to reserve a seat on the tour.

Saturday, August 28th: 9:30 AM – 6:30 PM.

Bring your models to display (any scale) from 9:30 – 12:00.

Modeling clinics start at 1:00 PM:

• Doug Nighswonger – MOW equipment

• Mike Faletti – Building bridge/structure & freight car prototypes

Milwaukee history presentations:

• Al Currier – slide show

• George Werkema – Bellingham branch line slides

Sunday, August 29th: 9:30AM-6: 30 PM

Slide and video presentations:

• Allen Miller – slide show

• Paul Krueger – the Gary Parson slide collection taken at South Cle Elum

• John Crosby – his DVD cab ride through the Cascades with Q&A after

• Noel Holley – His GE collection of B&W photos taken in Montana

Location:

Download a flyer about this event to printout and share!

Click the thumbnail or link below for a printable PDF.

"2010 Cascade Rail Foundation’s Milwaukee Road Modelers Meet info"

See you there!

by Mark Borleske

The John Wayne Pioneer Wagons & Riders made an overnight visit Saturday, May 24, 2009 to
the old South Cle Elum Rail Yard last Saturday. South Cle Elum is just one
of many overnight stops for the horse group as they travel across Washington
on their namesake, the John Wayne Trail. The riders have been taking part in
an annual ride across Washington State on the route of the former Milwaukee
Road since 1981. This year, the ride started in Easton on Saturday and will
end up in Tekoa, Washington, near the Idaho state line, on June 6th.

The John Wayne Pioneer Wagons and Riders, and their namesake John Wayne
Pioneer Trail, are closely linked. In 1977, the Milwaukee Road went bankrupt
and in 1980, the railroad cut their service in the west. The group persuaded
the State of Washington to acquire the former railroad right of way as a
recreational trail. By 1981, the John Wayne riders were making organizing
their first ride, the initial one was from the Columbia River to Easton.
Since then, the ride has expanded and has been well-received by communities
and some ranchers and farmers who act as overnight hosts to the group and
provide camping space. The John Wayne Trail is now managed by Washington
State Parks as a part of Iron Horse State Park. Other portions of the trail
in Eastern Washington are managed by the Washington Department of Natural
Resources. Volunteer members of the John Wayne riders have spent countless
hours making improvements on the trail, to trailheads as well as locations
along the trail. In Spring of 2009, for example, volunteers have work
parties planting trees and cleaning up brush in the rail yard at South Cle
Elum. They also has a work party doing cleanup and making trail improvements
at the Thorpe trailhead.

On Saturday night, the riders were hosted by the Cascade Rail Foundation, a
volunteer organization which works with State Parks in managing the South
Cle Elum Rail Yard and the historic depot. Over one hundred people enjoyed a
steak cookout in front of the historic depot building.  On Sunday morning,
the riders were treated to a continental breakfast at the depot before
riding out.

As it was time to move on, the riders hit the trail, traveling east, with a
procession of horses and bicycles, moving at their own pace. Due to State
Parks recent closure of the tunnels on the John Wayne Trail, including two
in the Yakima River Canyon, Sunday’s ride was more like an excursion, out
and back instead of traveling on to the overnight destination at Thorpe.
Later in the afternoon, the riders broke camp and traveled with their
vehicles, horse trailers and horses and bicycles to Thorpe. In addition to
the overnight stays at Easton, South Cle Elum and Thorpe, the riders will
continue with stays at Kittitas, Renslow (I-90 Trailhead/Army West), and
Wanapum, on the Columbia River; all in Kittitas County. The ride continues
east of the Columbia River with visits to Othello, Warden, Lind, Ralston,
Revere, Ewan, Malden, Rosalia and ending in Tekoa.