Spirit of Washington dinner train rolling toward Rainier
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TACOMA, Wash. -- Seventy-five years after a train regularly carried travelers from Tacoma to Mount Rainier, the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train has tourists riding the rails again.
The red-and-white 1950s vintage streamliner rolled out of Tacoma's Freighthouse Square on Aug. 3 after Mayor Bill Baarsma and dinner train owner Eric Temple drove a ceremonial golden spike into the track.
The National Park Limited carried an average of 120,000 passengers a year in the 1920s in its run from Seattle to Tacoma and onward to Mount Rainier. It stopped running in 1932, a victim of the Great Depression and the automobile.
The city and the dinner train's owners have set up a 10-month trial to test whether the dinner train, formerly based in Renton, can survive in Tacoma.
The train goes almost all the way to Mount Rainier. It stops at Lake Kapowsin and then returns to Tacoma -- all in a 3 1/2 hour trip. It will probably take $7 million to $9 million in rail upgrades and a bridge repair for the train to reach Ashford and the gateway to Rainier, said Paul Henry, Tacoma Rail superintendent.
Details at http://www.spiritofwashingtondinnertrain.com/
First Published August 14, 2007 9:11 am
