2024: Everett, WA

September 10-14

Chair: Kent Sullivan

Description

Though far off the mainline, Everett, Washington, was an important station on the Northern Pacific, and a solid beachhead against rival Great Northern. The city had its origins in 1888 when eastern financiers, lured to western Washington largely by the completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad to Tacoma and the portending arrival of James J. Hill’s St. Paul Minneapolis & Manitoba, established a townsite on Port Gardner Bay, an inlet of the Salish Sea/Puget Sound.

Convention Location

Lodging and Sights

Our hotel, the Marriott Delta, is immediately west of Interstate 5, 10 blocks from downtown and 6 blocks from the Everett Station transit center. Amtrak’s Chicago-Seattle Empire Builder serves Everett Station in both directions daily, as does Sound Transit’s Sounder commuter line and bus service from Seattle to Everett.

Book online your hotel room or by calling 425-339-2000.

Register online for the convention and related activities. (Alternatively, you can download, print, and send the mail-in registration form and mail-in raffle form. You can also download and print this convention information.)

Downtown Everett has a number of lovely sights, including several historic buildings, as well as many wonderful places to eat. Not far away is Boeing’s Everett factory complex (tours available) as well as other attractions, including the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum. Please check out the carousel of pictures at the bottom of the page for images of the hotel and Everett-area attractions.

Schedule Overview

Tuesday evening will be a welcome reception. A packed two days of presentations start bright and early on Wednesday. On Friday we will travel to the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie, where we will ride behind NP 924, the only currently-operating NP steam locomotive. We will also tour the historic Snoqualmie depot, museum, and restoration center. Saturday will be a special joint swap meet with our friends in the Great Northern Railway Historical Society, several modeling presentations and clinics, and the closing banquet.

Presentation Topics

Here is a sampling of the 30 or so exciting presentation topics:

Bellingham, Seattle roundhouse, Kirkland steel mill, Snoqualmie Branch
North Puget Sound Logging railroads that shipped on the NP
How to read a dispatcher’s train sheet
NP dining car china and NP Tacoma Division scheduled freight trains
Grays Harbor Line and the Buckley Line
Deep dive panel discussion on NP track standards and practices
Short “Ted Talks” on a number of topics
Late Show – 300 NP photos you have never seen
NP modeling presentations

Short walks

In conjunction with the Everett History Museum, we will have a couple of short walks near the hotel. One of the walks will be to the former NP depot and yard site, of which there is unfortunately nothing remaining. The other walk will be around downtown Everett, which several historic or otherwise interesting buildings, including a former Carnegie Library and a transportation hub for local and regional trains and buses.

Possible Side Trip on Monday 9/9

If you are interested in an all-day driving tour of the Sumas Line and Bellingham, with frequent stops to explore NP-related sites, please email Kent Sullivan. This possible excursion is not part of the convention and, for non-local guests, would require 2 more hotel nights since we would begin the trip early in the morning.