Hands-on fun awaits families this weekend at the 79th Snoqualmie Railroad Days

By Carol Ladwig • August 18, 2017 7:30 am

Old and new are combining this weekend at Snoqualmie’s end-of-summer festival, Railroad Days, which starts Friday evening in downtown Snoqualmie. Old favorites such as the firefighter pancake breakfast, David Moses Timber Sports Show, Plein Air Paint Out, Arts in the Park and Legends Classic Car Show will be back, along with a new partner for the children’s events, and changes to the beer garden.

Encompass Northwest has taken on management of the children’s games, adding a few options of their own to the bounce houses, demos and activities, and Sigillo Cellars, past sponsors of the Wine Garden by the Arts Stage in Railway Park, are expanding into the beer garden, as well.

“Sigillo’s is doing a combined beer and wine garden in the King Street lot,” said Peggy Barchi, Northwest Railway Museum marketing manager and Railroad Days coordinator. The museum will host the wine garden she added, with Sigillo wines. And, courtesy of the city of Snoqualmie, the beer and wine garden will be located under a large tent to give shade to revelers.

Old meets new, too, in the History Comes Alive display, which will include an area for historical selfies, with a supply of old-fashioned hats and accessories people can wear in photos.

“We’re going to use the hashtag #rrdays2017, for people to tag their photos,” added an excited Barchi. “This was one of my hare-brained ideas I came up with a couple of months ago, because people like the hands-on kind of thing.”

The Fort Nisqually Time Travelers will return to Railroad Park on Saturday and Sunday for living history demonstrations, too.

There will be two stages of music this year, the Main Stage in the King Street Lot and the Arts Stage in Railroad Park. It was a difficult decision to not put on a Children’s Stage. “We really love our kids’ musicians,” Barchi said, but organizers decided this year that “We’d rather focus on the hands-on stuff that the kids and the families seemed to want.”

Hands-on is what you’ll find in the children’s area, where the Prospector’s Club will teach guests to pan for gold — with real gold to find, but not to keep — and Operation Lifesaver will teach children about safety around train tracks.

Trains will run on their regular schedule Saturday and Sunday, too.

Find the full schedule of events for the weekend at http://www.railroaddays.com.

Belgian horses pull the Carmichael’s hardware parade float. Carmichaels is offering free wagon rides this year from noon to 3 p.m. along Falls Avenue. File Photo