NRHS Convention Tacoma 2011
By Peter Limper
| From June 20-26, 2011, I attended the National Railway Historical Society convention in Tacoma, Washington. Arriving on the evening of the 20th, I had a good view of Mt. Rainier from the Seattle-Tacoma airport. | ||
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| The convention headquarters were in the very modern Hotel Morano; from my room I had good views of downtown Tacoma and the Foss Waterway. |
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| On June 21 many convention attendees traveled south on this Amtrak Cascades train to Vancouver, WA, where they boarded a steam train for the return trip to Tacoma. |
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| In the evening of June 21 there was a reception at the Washington State Historical Museum in Tacoma, with a chance to view this large and excellent HO layout. |
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| The layout, depicting the Tacoma area in about 1955, has trains representing the railroads that served the city then: NP, GN, and CMStP&P, as well as UP. |
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| On June 22 I took a “traction” tour (more accurately a tour of various forms of mass transit) to Seattle, beginning with a short ride on the Tacoma light rail, followed by a trip to Seattle on a double-deck “Sounder” train. |
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| The push-pull cab of the train shown after arrival in Seattles King Street Station. | ||
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| We rode the Seattle monorail line, which connects a downtown location with Seattle Center, near the Space Needle. |
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| The two monorail trains look much as they did in 1961 when they were built by the Alweg Company of Germany. |
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| A view of the interior of one of the monorail cars, and of the track ahead of the train. |
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| Passengers disembark at the end of the one mile, two minute trip from downtown. |
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| We were able to tour the maintenance facility just below track level, and view the drive machinery under the cars |
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| These horizontal wheels guide the train along the single concrete rail, while other larger rubber-tired wheels support the weight of the train; the two copper electrical contact rails provide power to motors like that shown in the second picture. |
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| We also rode the Sound Transit light rail system from downtown to the airport and back. |
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| Sound Transit cars stand outside the maintenance facility. |
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| The NRHS groups had an extensive tour of the maintenance facility. |
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| Spare power trucks and other components for the 3-unit articulated cars, which are built by a Japanese-American consortium. |
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| This car was being “wrapped” with a temporary advertising overlay; I don’t know if the workers used Testors Decalset. |
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| After the transit tour, some convention attendees were dropped off at the Seattle waterfront, where I took an overall picture of the area from a bridge and photographed a ferry boat in Puget Sound. |
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| Many NRHS members went on a dinner cruise on the Royal Argosy. |
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| All NRHS passengers were seated on the lower deck for dinner, which made for crowding at the tables; I photographed a container ship from the dining room windows. |
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| Views of Puget Sound and the Seattle skyline as the boat returned to port. |
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| Tacoma has been a rail center ever since it became the western terminus of the Northern Pacific in 1887; the Union Station building opening in 1911. |
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| The building now houses a Federal courthouse; the central rotunda, open to the public, has been restored to an appearance similar to when the station was built. |
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| The building functioned as a railroad station until 1984; a display of photographs shows various periods in its history. |
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| The current Amtrak station is about a mile south of the former Union Station; NRHS members awaited a steam excursion on June 25 as a UP freight passed. |
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| Tacoma is served by the Amtrak “Coast Starlight” and by “Cascades” trains running between Eugene, Oregon, and Vancouver, BC using articulated “Talgo” equipment. |
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| A pedestrian bridge near the former Union Station provided a good viewpoint to photograph freight trains on the lines running south from Tacoma toward Portland. |
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| On June 25, after a steam excursion over Stampede Pass in the Cascades, I took a sunset picture from my hotel room while preparing to return to Memphis the next morning. |
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For pictures of other activities at the NRHS 2011 convention, see
Steam at NRHS Convention 2011
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