In today's video, I'm riding a train in Snoqualmie, Washington...
And not just any train... but a full-sized version of Thomas The Tank Engine...
At an event known as A Day Out With Thomas.
As you can imagine, kids were pretty excited to see their favorite train!
And Thomas wasn't the only train I got to see...
There were some pretty cool restored locomotives on display...
At this event at the Northwest Railway Museum in Washington.
As you know if you've watched some of my other YouTube videos...
I'm all about model trains.
And these big G-scale trains are what I run here at my house.
I've done a lot of videos about the G-scale version of Thomas The Tank Engine...
Running on layouts inside my house...
And outside in my yard...
So, when I heard that a full-sized version of Thomas...
Would be here in Washington state for a few weeks...
I jumped at the chance to buy a ticket to take a ride at an event known as a “Day Out With Thomas”.
Now I live on the east side of Washington, in a place called the Tri Cities...
And Thomas would only be visiting the west side of Washington, not far from Seattle...
So, I made the three-and-a-half hour drive from my house...
Across the Cascade mountain range...
And over to the west side of the state...
To the historic little town of Snoqualmie.
Which is a popular tourist destination because of the beautiful waterfalls here known as Snoqualmie Falls.
Steam trains began bringing tourists to Snoqualmie Falls starting in 1889...
And up until the 1920s.
The historic Snoqualmie train depot has been preserved...
And that was the starting point for my train ride.
It was exciting when Thomas pulled in to the station...
And after the passengers from the previous trip all disembarked...
It was finally our turn to get onboard.
(Conductor) Please follow me, we'll get you to your trains and on to your destination.
While we were all boarding, other people took the opportunity to get photos with Thomas...
And after about ten or fifteen minutes of turnover time...
Everything was set for us to pull out of the station.
Now I can't be in two places at one time...
Sitting in my seat in one of the passenger cars...
And shooting video from outside to see Thomas as he pulled out of the station...
So, this clip you're seeing here was shot a little earlier in the day.
As was this one.
And here's a brief drone shot, too, that I got earlier in the day...
As Thomas made his way south, away from the Snoqualmie Depot.
There were four rail cars making up this train, behind Thomas...
And inside those passenger cars, some of them had very plush seats, and...
That's where most of the passengers chose to sit.
I actually picked the very last car of the train, because it was half empty.
And I think that was probably because this one had wooden seats.
At first, the tracks ran parallel to the main road that runs through the town of Snoqualmie...
But after a while, the tracks made their way in to the woods
As we headed towards our first destination: a visit to the Northwest Railway Museum's train shed...
Where they refurbish and display a lot of great railway equipment from back in the day.
As we got closer to the train shed, we started to see a lot of old train parts alongside the tracks.
And once we finally arrived at the train shed, we all got off the train for a look around.
Sitting outside the shed, there was a lot of cool old train stuff from the old days...
Including locomotive #7, which I assume they are planning to restore some day.
And there was also a lot of fun stuff for the kids to do here, outside the train shed.
We had about an hour to spend here before we would have to get back on the train for the rest of our journey.
While a lot of the kids played outside...
I made a bee line inside to see all the cool old trains that the museum had in their shed.
This is where they keep the good stuff!
They had several old freight cars on display here inside the train shed...
Everything from box cars, to the old stock cars that used to transport livestock...
And lots of signage that tells the story of what you're looking at.
The highlight for me was several old steam engines that had been restored.
These were locomotives that used to run here in the Pacific Northwest back in the 1800s and early 1900s.
A lot of these locomotives were used to haul timber back in the days when they logged the forests in this area.
Several of the locomotives here at the museum are in operating condition...
And on Saturdays and Sundays you can go for rides.
The thing on this particular weekend, with Thomas The Tank Engine, was a special event, but...
You can do basically the same thing on just about any weekend...
It just won't be Thomas at the front of the train.
Another thing I found interesting here inside the train shed was a model train layout.
It's O gauge stuff, a little smaller than the G-scale model trains I run at my house.
They did have Thomas running on their layout, with Annie & Clarabel in tow...
And they had Percy running, too...
As well as quite a few other trains.
I presume it's mostly Lionel stuff...
It reminded me a lot of the model trains that I used to play with when I was a kid.
They also had a gift shop here at the museum's train shed...
With lots of stuff for train lovers of all ages.
The kids, of course, will love the Thomas & Friends toys...
And I was surprised at the reasonable prices.
$10 for this motorized version of Emily seemed like a good price to me.
There was also a photo opportunity with The Fat Controller...
Also known as Sir Topham Hatt.
(train horn)
After about an hour visiting the Northwest Railway Museum's train shed...
We got back onboard the train...
And this time the train was heading in the reverse direction that it was travelling before.
So, now instead of being at the front of the train…
Thomas was at the back of the train going backwards.
And this yellow diesel locomotive was at the front of the train.
Spoiler alert: this is the locomotive that actually powers the entire train.
The Thomas The Tank Engine at the other end of the train is just a shell...
A prop for the kids, basically.
It's not a real powered locomotive
(train horn)
Anyway, back to the train ride...
We had left that train shed and we were heading back north...
Towards the Snoqualmie train depot where our journey had begun.
But this time we wouldn't be stopping at the train depot...
Because our ride was far from over.
We were on the way to a very special destination...
And to get there, we had to go back in the opposite direction that we had come...
And go right past the Snoqualmie depot and head off to the north end of town.
As we got out of the downtown area...
It was fun to see more old railroad equipment just sitting along the side of the tracks.
Look at these old locomotives just sitting there.
As a train fanatic, this was really something interesting for me to see!
(train horn)
As we continued our way north, out of town...
Another cool thing I spotted alongside the tracks was this old rotary snow plow.
Now I switched over to a seat on the right side of the train...
Because I noticed that the view on this side of the train was getting interesting.
Looking through the trees...
I started to realize that these tracks were running right alongside the Snoqualmie River.
And over on the other side of the river I was seeing electrical equipment.
I spent 28 years working for a big electric company in California, so...
I began to realize that we were approaching the hydroelectric facilities at Snoqualmie Falls.
Now I'm not from this part of Washington and I've never seen Snoqualmie Falls before...
I was starting to wonder if maybe we might have a good view of it from right here on the train.
I'm just going to let you watch and see what I saw from the window of the train...
But keep your expectations low, because there were a lot of trees between us and river...
And they pretty much blocked the views, but...
There were a few little glimpses here and there of some beautiful sights.
Just before we reached the northern end of our trip...
And the train stopped and headed back towards town to get us back to the train depot...
We did have a pretty spectacular view of the Snoqualmie River canyon...
Just past Snoqualmie Falls.
Here's a drone shot to show you what we couldn't see from the train.
This is spectacular Snoqalmie Falls.
Before long, we were back in town...
Pulling in to the Snoqualmie train depot.
And the end of my day out with Thomas.
I had travelled three and a half hours to get here...
And it would take another three and a half to get back...
But it was worth it for me.
I enjoyed it.
I hope you enjoyed coming along with me in this video.
Subscribe to my YouTube channel if you're a fan of Thomas & Friends...
Or if you just like trains...
Both the real, full-sized trains you can ride on...
And the smaller model trains that I like to play with at home.
I'm Jim Zim. Thanks for watching.