Layout Tours

THURSDAY OPEN HOUSES: Visit the layout of Kirk Reddie, the editor/publisher of N-Scale Railroading magazine. His very large Northwest-themed layout features Milwaukee Road, Great Northern, Northern Pacific and Union Pacific. Progress on scenery and structures has been rather dramatic since the last Soundrail! Guests are welcome from 6-9pm Thursday.

On the other side of Puget Sound, the Bremerton Northern Model Railroad club in Silverdale, Kitsap County has layouts in HO, N, American Flyer, and a small Lionel. It's located in the Kitsap Mall and open Thursday and Saturday from 12-4

See also the PSMRE listing below if you have time during the day Thursday.

FRIDAY TOURS:

Lee Marsh's Great Northern has been featured recently on the cover of Model Railroader and their annual calendar. The layout represents GN’s Cascade mountain crossing in Washington State. Highlights include operating brass locomotives (steam, electric, and diesel), detailed rolling stock, and gorgeous scenery including custom representations of actual trees. OPEN: 5-8pm Friday

Mike O'Connell's enormous Pacific Railway & Navigation Co, O Proto48, featured recently in Model Railroader including on the cover, with its signature night scene of Spokane. OPEN: 3-8pm Friday

Burr Stewart's Burrlington Northern, an HO version of the BN in the Seattle area from Tukwila north to Burlington and east to the Cascade Mountains town of Skykomish in 1973. OPEN: 5-9pm Friday

Boeing Employees Model Railroad Club Seattle and North Cascades, Mountain Division. This HO-scale, 1200 sqft, double decked layout follows a route from Seattle to Omak, WA in the 1950s. The mainline is about 7 scale miles long, plus a 1 mile branch, and the layout is about 80% sceniced. The club shares a building with the Pacific Northwest Railroad Archive. OPEN: 5-8pm Friday

SUNDAY AFTERNOON Seattle and south tours:

Bill Sornsin's HO scale Great Northern Cascade Division, 1st Subdivision is operational in a purpose-built 3,000 sf structure. Not much scenery, but detailed models of King Street Station and Edmonds depot and over 1,500 feet of track with trains running from Seattle through Everett to Snohomish plus 3 large staging complexes. You'll also see creative construction solutions, unusual railroad artifacts, and a restroom built from prototype GN plans. OPEN: 5-7pm Sunday

Boeing Employees Model Railroad Club Seattle and North Cascades, Mountain Division. Details above. OPEN: 5-7pm Sunday

The N-scale Northern Pacific Tacoma Division of Keith Lyons in Snohomish, a large two-level (plus staging) layout centered around the Puget Sound region of Washington State. OPEN: 3-7 Sunday

PSMRE - the Puget Sound Model Railroad Engineers have built a spectacular HO layout located in Tacoma's Washington State History Museum. Entry requires a museum ticket - $14 adult, $11 senior (60+) or active/retired military with ID - but it's worth it. You'll see dozens of scratchbuilt structures of downtown Tacoma prototypes, intricate models of Northern Pacific and Milwaukee Road bridges, outstanding mountain scenery including thousands of trees and logged-over hillsides, and a backdrop mural of Mount Rainier. OPEN: 10am-5pm (daily except Monday) - best suited for operators heading south on Sunday (or who have time Thursday)

Tyler Whitcomb's Tenino Western in N scale. Set in the early 1990's, this oft-published layout features luscious green forest, rolling hills, cascading waterfalls and meandering streams while servicing various logging-related customers. OPEN: 3-6pm Sunday.