Northwest Railway Museum moves two 330,000-pound locomotives

By Record Staff • November 3, 2021 11:24 am

After more than 10 years of work, the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie is moving one of its locomotives back to its home railroad.

The move is part of a deal between the Northwest Railway Museum and Nevada Northern Railway Foundation where Locomotive 201 — which originally operated near Ely, Nevada, until 1983 — would be returned.

“This is a truly exciting development for both the Northwest Railway Museum and the Nevada Northern Railway’s collection, which will help further align them with their missions and scope of collection,” the Northwest Railway Museum wrote in a blog post.

Locomotive 201 is a six-axle road switcher built by the American Locomotive Company in 1951. When Kennecott Copper shuttered its operations in the 1980s, they donated several locomotives to museums across the west.

Locomotive 201 spent 20 years at the Northwest Railway Museum, pulling trains on the Snoqualmie Valley Railroad. However, it had been in storage since the Northwest Railway Museum acquired two much smaller Baldwin switchers to pull its passenger trains.

As part of the transaction, the Northwest Railway Museum will move its recently purchased Locomotive 125 from the Port of Longview to Snoqualmie.

Locomotive 125 is an American Locomotive Company model built in 1940 and was retired by the Port of Longview in the early 2000s. It was just the second diesel-electric locomotive on the Northern Pacific Railway and was first operated in Seattle. It also spent time in the Walla Walla Valley before being moved to Longview in the 1980s.

Moving both locomotives will require several workers and heavy equipment as both weigh more than 330,000 pounds.

The Northwest Railway Museum moves Locomotive 125 in Snoqualmie on Nov. 3. Locomotive 125 comes from the Port of Longview. Photo William Shaw/Valley Record.