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N, G or HO) which determine the scale of
the trains.
Layouts feature carefully measured
track and appropriate scale-sized build-
ings, including depots and stations. Penin-
sula club members have their pre-built on
modular layouts which they clamp together
for shows, drastically reducing set-up time.
They plug in, adjust control devices, then the
fun begins as visitors of all ages watch.
Sometimes as many as five trains are run-
ning simultaneously.
“We run the trains as if we were run-
ning the schedule,” Clemmens said. “We are
‘playing trains,’ as if we are doing the real
thing, except in miniature.”
Enjoyment is generated as the carefully
crafted locomotives reverse, pick up extra
railroad cars, attach them safely and chug
into a yard or station.
“For some people, it’s just watching the
trains go around and around,” he said.
‘Hooked’
Two retired U.S. Coast Guard mechan-
ics, George Normandin of Long Beach and
Budd Lather of Ilwaco, both speak senti-
mentally about the joy their hobby brings.
Normandin’s career was spent keeping
giant ship’s motors functioning; his hobby
engines are way smaller.
“I got into it as I got older,” Normandin
said. “It’s just fun.”
In his youth, older kids away at college
would spend weekends home in Michi-
gan and travel back to Chicago on “Sunday
Flyers.”
“We got hooked on trains as a kid,”
Lather said. “We knew people that worked
for the railroad.”
Lather is the club’s president. One of his
fondest memories as a high school student in
Seattle was accompanying his eighth-grade
sister on a two-day adventure to a wedding
in the early 1960s.
“We spent nights sleeping in recliners
and spent all day in the observation car,”
he said. “A hamburger on the train was $5
then — we were broke by the time we got to
Chicago.”
Later, memories of watching real trains at
Ballard Locks in Seattle and a more recent
preservation project in Portland rekindled
his interest. He moved to Ilwaco 10 years
ago and now has a 20-foot model layout
above his garage.
Coach
A variety of stage displays will be avail-
able to view, hosted both by visiting clubs
and local residents.
Those attending the Clamshell Railroad
Days can enjoy one of only two opportu-
nities during the year to climb aboard the
Rich Blake
Alan Murray, right, runs a train watched by fellow railroad enthusiast Mark Clemmens at a prior gathering of the annual Clamshell Railroad
Days. Enthusiasts run their trains year-round at homes and in their shops, dismantling them and reassembling for shows.
museum’s largest artifact. The Nahcotta, a
refurbished passenger train coach built by
the Pullman Palace Car Co. of Chicago, will
be available from 10 a.m. to noon and 2 p.m.
to 3:30 p.m. each day.
The coach was attached to trains that
ran from 1889 to 1930 on the local nar-
row-gauge line. This was nicknamed the
Clamshell Railroad and gives its name to the
annual event. The Cranberrian Fair in Octo-
ber is the only other time the real rail car-
riage is open for public viewing.
The museum, housed in Ilwaco’s old
telephone company headquarters, which
was built in the 1960s, features a recreation
of elements of the Ilwaco Rail & Naviga-
tion Co.’s freight depot, which served as the
south peninsula’s commercial transportation
hub in the early 1900s.
Upstairs in a permanent fixture is a dis-
play created by Arthur Shumway highlight-
ing the Spokane Portland and Seattle Rail-
way Co. On the museum’s changeable wall
featuring “Peninsula characters,” are portrait
photos of Ilwaco railroad pioneers Edwin
and Lewis Loomis.
For children, there will be storytimes in
the Nahcotta at 1 p.m. each day. There will
also be kids’ take-and-make kits available
from the Ilwaco Timberland Library.
Patrick Webb
Budd Lather, president of the Peninsula Model Railroad Club, gears up for the annual Clamshell
Railroad Days at the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum in Ilwaco.
THURSDAY, JULY 15, 2021 // 5