Land swap gets Snoqualmie history center on track

A Railway History Center featuring a 24,000-square-foot exhibition building will be built in Snoqualmie, thanks to a land swap completed Thursday between the Northwest Railway Museum and Meadowbrook Farm.

A signing ceremony that included the mayors of Snoqualmie and North Bend, and Richard Anderson, executive director of the museum, was held at the historic Snoqualmie Depot. It was a complicated deal that took 17 months to complete, Anderson said.

The museum picked up 4 acres adjacent to its tracks that run between North Bend and Snoqualmie. The land abuts the group's Conservation and Restoration Center on the eastern border of Snoqualmie.

In turn, the museum gifted Meadowbrook with 4 acres of commercial property it owned near the Mount Si Quarry. Meadowbrook Farm, owned jointly by Snoqualmie and North Bend, sits between the Snoqualmie River and Highway 202.

Because Meadowbrook Farm was created in 1996 with open-space funding, changes in ownership and use require approval from the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks and the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Funding Board.

It also had to be approved by the board overseeing Meadowbrook, by the nonprofit museum's board, and by the two city councils and planning departments.

What's good about that, said Dave Battey, vice president of the Meadowbrook board of directors, is the location.

"The land is near the quarry and near the site of Swing Rock," he said.

Swing Rock was a giant boulder that was part of the Snoqualmie Tribe's legend about their arrival in the valley. They have believed a giant rock between North Bend and Snoqualmie was the petrified remains of a rope swing that brought their ancestors to the area. Early settlers named it Quarry Rock and excavated and crushed part of it for road building.

The Railway Center's 24,000-foot exhibition hall, called the Train Shed, will hold and display most of the museum's rolling stock. That appealed to Matt Larson, mayor of Snoqualmie.

"When they can move the 50 artifacts — train cars and engines — into the facility, it will substantially change downtown Snoqualmie," he said. "Getting the trains indoors will keep them from deteriorating further."

Both Larson and Ken Hearing, mayor of North Bend, were delighted with the swap because eventually it will increase tourist visits to the two cities.

"I think the deal is fabulous because it will allow the museum to grow. It had no place to expand," Hearing said. "This will be a big part of the economic development of the upper [Snoqualmie] Valley. Getting more people to visit our cities is a good thing."

Anderson, the museum director, received a round of applause for his vision and efforts to improve the facility.

"I didn't do this alone," he said. "We did it. We can't have a successful museum without a successful community and the help of many people."

When it's completed, families will board a restored train at the Snoqualmie Depot for a 12-minute ride to the Railway History Center.

In the Train Shed, visitors will tour exhibits that include locomotives, coaches and freight cars. Guides will explain how railroads were key to settling the Northwest. The progression of train development also will be shown, from late 1800s' all-wood cars to more modern steel coaches of the 1950s.

The Train Shed is expected to cost $3.1 million.

In the Conservation and Restoration Center that opened in 2006, visitors standing on an observation deck can watch crews restore antique rolling stock and do maintenance work on locomotives.

A library, administration center and roundhouse eventually will be added. A roundhouse uses a giant turntable to allow railcars and engines to be turned around or directed to different tracks.

The Northwest Railway Museum incorporated in 1957 and entertains more than 85,000 visitors a year.

Sherry Grindeland: 206-515-5633 or sgrindeland@seattletimes.com