Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad

10/19/2026

Well, not quite the news we'd hoped for.

The Federal Railroad Administration announced its latest round of CRISI grant awards, and unfortunately, our project to restore freight service between Eatonville and Morton wasn't selected.

First, big, big congratulations to our friends and colleagues across the railroad industry who received funding! A special congratulations to Everett Railroad Company and to FMW Solutions)who prepared several successful applications.) Both have been great supporters of MRSR during our rebirth. There are some really worthwhile projects moving forward, and we're glad to see continued investment in America's railroads.

This was an exceptionally competitive round: 368 applications requesting more than $12 billion, with approximately $2.34 billion available for awards.

Our application requested $28.5 million toward a $35.7 million project to rebuild our fire-destroyed trestle, rehabilitate approximately 36 miles of railroad, and restore freight service to the lumber mills and other businesses in East Lewis County.
It's an ambitious project. But three years ago, restarting passenger trains on this railroad was pretty ambitious, too.
When we reopened in September 2023, we had a small staff, dedicated volunteers, limited resources, and an enormous amount of work ahead of us. Since then, we've more than doubled our operational trackage, restored service to previously inactive sections of railroad, and grown into an operation welcoming more than 80,000 visitors a year.

We've done most of that work ourselves, one project at a time, and we're enormously proud of what our little crew has accomplished.

We've also had some extraordinary setbacks, including losing our largest bridge to arson last year. None of that changes what we believe this railroad can be.

The railroad was built to serve the timber industry more than a century ago, and those businesses are still here. Restoring freight service could provide local manufacturers with better access to national markets, support family-wage jobs, and take thousands of heavy truck trips off our highways.

We have a realistic plan, strong support from prospective freight customers, and a growing coalition of community and government partners who recognize the value of restoring this transportation corridor.

We owe a huge thank-you to everyone who helped prepare and support this application, particularly David Anzur of Anzur Logistics and Toby Van Altvorst of Goose Lake Railroad, as well as the many businesses, community organizations, elected officials, and agencies who stood behind the project.

We'll continue working with our partners, pursuing state and federal funding, and making improvements wherever we can. We didn't get where we are now overnight, and we won't rebuild 36 miles of railroad overnight either.

We're disappointed. This application was a huge amount of work, and we had a lot riding on it. We'll be sad today, but we'll get back to it tomorrow.

If you're able to help support the advancement of the project and our mission, please consider a donation at wfim.org/donate

10/09/2026

It’s been just over three years since we started running trains again, and somehow we’ve lived a million lifetimes in those three years. We’re taking it one baby step at a time, occasionally taking a few backward, and doing our best to keep our heads above water.

The to-do list is super overwhelming. If we think about it too much, we get that feeling of tightness in our chest and the headache right between our eyes. Sometimes, (a lot of the time), it’s hard to imagine we’ll “ever get there.”

But yesterday, we got somewhere. Literally.

Our shop crew took a few days away from passenger car and steam locomotive work to help our maintenance-of-way team get another 1.2 miles of track over the finish line and back in service. We’ve restored the track south of the Murray Switch at our Mineral Museum to East Creek Junction- and boy howdy, we’re going to run trains there!

A mile and a bit might not sound like much, but since reopening, we’ve more than doubled our operable trackage and done a TON of work on the rest. One baby step at a time.

Our sold-out Family Halloween trains will visit East Creek Junction, and we’ve added one more operating weekend: our scenic excursions will head there during the last weekend of October, too.

And while our crews were getting this done, y’all were delivering in another way. We posted our Amazon Wishlist last week, and HOLY COW. The packages started arriving. Check out those order slips. We’ve added a few things if you want to help us out with the to-do list!

Thank you for helping us chip away at that very long list.

Yesterday was a good day.

Wanna help?

Amazon Wishlist: https://a.co/0gq6F1VG
Donate: https://wfim.org/donate

10/07/2026

We didn’t know Elmo was an engineer. Naturally, we’re now trying to recruit him.

Elmo, let’s talk. How do you feel about rain?

All aboard!! 🚂 The Elmo express is here! 😎❤️

10/01/2026

Well. That worked considerably better than anticipated.

(If we had anticipated.)

For context, we occasionally consult ChatGPT when our first choice of wording might require a meeting with our board. Finished product is all human (if our typos are anything to go by). Please enjoy this glimpse behind the curtain. 😂

ICYMI: We accidentally scheduled a random weekday charter train, opened it to the public (whoops!), and it sold out (woo!). 🤷‍♀️

A lot of tourist railroads have a big fall season. Historically, that hasn’t been us. We usually run hard all summer, cool our jets a little in the fall when school starts, and then dive headfirst into Christmas.

Turns out, y’all do want to ride trains on a weekday. Quite a lot of you, actually.

We would love to take credit for this carefully researched business decision, but the research consisted of accidentally putting a train on the calendar and watching y'all buy tickets.

So, with our weekend departures practically sold out, we’ve added more weekday trains. This time on purpose.

Book now if you’d like to join us. Apparently our accidental ideas have a very enthusiastic audience. 🚂

tl:dr - MORE TRAINS

09/30/2026

Sometimes, we do things the hard way. (Most of the time.)

🤡

We’re really high on ambition and generally pretty low on cash.

We’re a small nonprofit (it’s not a goal, it’s a tax status) trying to do some decidedly spendy things - like moving three 100-year-old passenger cars from North Carolina to Washington so they could have a new life at a new museum.

As tends to happen when you move century-old railroad equipment 3,000ish miles across the country, this project has taken longer and cost considerably more than anyone hoped.

But! The cars are here. They’ve arrived. We’ve stared at them.

But! Staring at them, sadly, does not generate revenue.

The plan! Get one car back into service in time for Christmas, put it to work, and make it start earning its keep.

Right now, the interior is mostly demolished. The brakes, trucks, and other big mechanical whats-its are done.

Our mechanical crew would probably throw some camp chairs in there and call it good, but a strict directive has been issued: every bit of this car is getting sanded (or, more accurately, wire-wheeled), painted, and made shiny and “new.”

Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for many trees), one member of our MOW crew is currently on light duty following an unfortunate after-hours mishap.

If we had a sandblasting cabinet, we’d use it.

We do not.

🤡

So our anonymous light-duty MOW crew member, outfitted with a garbage bag and questionable enthusiasm, has been spending some quality time bonding with a wire wheel and approximately one million seat bases.

Wire wheels have also become our tool of choice for stripping decades of old paint off the walls. At $6.99 a pop, they’re considerably more compatible with our pauper-level restoration budget.

Basically, we’re throwing bodies at this project.

A huge shoutout to Andy (of ALCO fame), and volunteers Brittnay and Michael, who have already put in a frankly unreasonable amount of wire-wheel time.

We’ve got the audio system figured out. We’ve got the power situation sketched out. We’ve got people sanding, scraping, painting, and generally attacking this thing from all directions.

What we don’t have figured out? 🎨🖌💅

What’s our interior color scheme going to look like?

And since you all are going to have to look at it, we figured we’d ask.

What do you think?

👀

If we still have your attention - this is what a lot of historic preservation work looks like. Decidedly unsexy. We stretch every dollar as far as it'll go, use what we have, rely on some truly wonderful folks, and do pretty much everything we possibly can in-house to save a few bucks.

So, if you like watching us make questionable financial decisions in the name of historic preservation and want to help, we could use it:

🛠️ Amazon Wishlist: https://a.co/0gq6F1VG

This is the unglamorous stuff we actually need: shop supplies, tools and materials that go directly into projects like this one. A fun wish-list item or two. Cat food.

🚂 Donate: https://wfim.org/donate

If you’d rather throw a few dollars directly into the proverbial railroad money pit, we promise to use them responsibly (in railroad terms).

No go on the fiscal help? Totally cool. Tell us what color to paint the darn thing.

09/29/2026

We’ll post passenger car work updates later today, but first, there is a situation unfolding in our shop...

You may notice there are two cat beds (one slightly out of frame) and two cats in this photo.

However....

In an incredible turn of events, Montgomery seems to have gained the upper hand (paw?) on Catton...

Despite the availability of perfectly adequate separate sleeping accommodations, Bernard has apparently determined that the strategic occupation of George’s bed (while George is still in it) is the preferred course of action.

George has elected not to surrender the territory.

Negotiations appear to have stalled.

Management has declined to intervene, review the Employee Handbook, or otherwise opine on what appears to be an internal jurisdictional dispute.

Our machinist and cat whisperer, Christopher Wendt, was seen looking at ticket prices to Yalta...

09/21/2026

We’ve got a bit of a good news / bad news situation here…
Our social media intern accidentally shut off all our ads (except Christmas) on September 1st.
The social media intern also messed up the “Book Now” calendar on our website.
👍The good news?
Sales have been really good. Like, *turning people away at the door every day* good.
👎The bad news?
The social media intern has now corrected the website, so tickets are infinitely more bookable.
‼️The other bad news?
If you’re hoping to ride with us before the end of the season, you need to book soon. Like…really soon.
There are only 17 days of regular-season service left, and quite a few trains are already getting very full.
So, here’s a handy-dandy availability matrix the social media intern put together in an attempt to repent for their sins.
Our apologies. The place is really going to the dogs. 🐕🚂

09/17/2026

🚂 Late-booking our trackwork updates!

We’ve been remiss in talking about our Maintenance of Way department, so here’s a recap of what they’ve been up to (other than cosplaying as Snow White):

We took over operations of the railroad at the end of 2022 and reopened 6.5 miles between Elbe and Mineral on September 1, 2023. Last year, we purchased the railroad from Tacoma Rail, and today we own 32 miles between Eatonville and Morton.
As a nonprofit, part of our mission is putting that historic infrastructure back to work by restoring the railroad to a sustainable, serviceable condition that can support both our tourist trains and, eventually, freight service.

The idea is pretty simple: use historic infrastructure that's already here to create a positive boost in economic activity for our rural communities, with a relatively small footprint environmentally and in term of “character” to the area.

We’re getting there, tie by tie!

Over the last three years, we've cleared 23 miles of railroad covered with heavy vegetation, reestablished regular vegetation control, doubled the amount of operable railroad and continued pushing north toward Eatonville.

So what does “rebuilding a railroad” actually involve?
It's more than replacing ties. The subgrade forms the foundation; ballast (the crushed rock) supports the track and drains water; ties hold the rails in place; and ditches carry water away. Even vegetation matters- keeping the right-of-way free or clear of trees and overgrowth prevents clogged drainage and lets sunlight reach the track structure and dry things out.

[Note: the OG Milwaukee Road didn’t believe in things like ballast that wasn’t perfectly round or quality subgrade. Sort of. More or less.]

Please see our intern's highly sophisticated technical drawing for further explanation. 😂

So, what have crews been doing this summer? 🚂

Changing out lots and lots of ties.

This summer, crews installed more than 600 ties between New Reliance and Eatonville, allowing us to safely move our “new” 100-year-old passenger cars over the line. The ties in that section are now approaching the condition needed for Class 1 track, with vegetation, drainage and rock work still to go.

Now they're working south, installing roughly another 600 ties toward East Creek Junction, where our Family Halloween Trains will travel for the first time this fall. 🎃 That extends our scenic route along Roundtop Creek and gives us a new event space while work for Christmas and other capital projects begins at our Mineral museum grounds.

Big ginormous, super-cool bonus: the line is now solid enough for us to move work trains carrying ties and ballast between Eatonville and Divide. In other words, we can increasingly use the railroad to rebuild the railroad - seriously reducing trucking costs and making future work much more efficient and inexpensive. Stretching every dang dollar we can! 🚂

And the rest of the railroad?

With our FEMA funding, we’re repairing the washed-out portion of the Morton Yard!

And the other stuff?

That's, like, complicated and stuff. We’re not sure how nerdy you want us to be…🖖

Behind the scenes, we've become a common carrier, met with prospective freight customers, developed a freight business plan, and applied for state and federal funding to continue rehabilitating the line and rebuild the lost bridge. Prospective shippers estimate us moving 4,340 annual railcar loads (or 13,020 truck loads) via rail. Total grant ask: $28.5 million. We’ll need to fund $7.1 million.

Whether we receive that funding is still TBD. Keep your fingers crossed for us. 🤞

Would you like to help support this work? Consider a donation at wfim.org/donate. 🚂