TOPPENISH, Wash. — Inside the old Northern Pacific Railroad depot in Toppenish, visitors can step back in time. Here, they will fund a passenger waiting room that has been remodeled to look like it's the 1920s.
There are mannequins dressed as passengers and as employees of the Northern Pacific Railroad. There's a ticket office with all of the original equipment, including a telegrapher office. You'll also see a Railway Express Agency office, a predecessor of UPS and FedEx.
Out in back you can check out a decades-long project to refurbish a 120-year old steam locomotive. In its heyday the S-1364 served Tacoma, Seattle and Yakima, before going on display at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma.
Dave Grillo, one of the young men working on the project, put down his tools to show us inside a 1912 caboose, the command center of any freight train.
"The conductor lived in this car day and night," Grillo said. "This was his home. This was his ice box. He kept all his meals in there. This is the restroom and the beds."
Grillo said he's not seeing a lot of young men his age working on locomotive projects like his so he's concerned about their preservation.
There's plenty of memorabilia at the Northern Pacific Railroad Museum, celebrating the line connecting the Great Lakes Region to Puget Sound.
The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday until October 15. They celebrate the holiday season with Christmas Train rides every weekend in December.
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