Cascade Rail Foundation

Before and After Renovation!

After many volunteer hours of renovation, the South Cle Elum Depot re-opened its doors in 2006.

Back in its heyday in the 1920s

The South Cle Elum Depot as seen from the south, with the substation and rail yard.

We are working to ensure the fascinating history of the Milwaukee Road in Washington is not forgotten

Contact Cascade Rail Foundation

You can visit our Archive web site to see Milwaukee Road-related documents and photos in our collections. To go to our site, click here or on the image below. UPDATE: Our Archive web site is back (with a new address) after being derailed by a software update gone wrong. It is still rough around the edges, but most of the documents are there. Contact us if you need a document from the site that is still missing.

Dale Jones, author of the recently published book “The Milwaukee Connection Spokane to Butte”, will be at Page 2 Books in Burien, WA on Saturday, July 21 at 1:30 PM to talk to fellow rail enthusiasts and sign copies of his books.

2018 Substation Tours

The giant Milwaukee Road substation next to the South Cle Elum depot is usually closed to the public, but we’ll be giving guided tours again this summer. Tours will be available Saturday, June 16 and Saturday, July 14 between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. We also will open the substation for…

Gandy Dancing in the Rail Yard

We’re very pleased to share another video by Charlie Conway! Charlie is a Contributing Editor for Model Railroader Video Plus (MRVP), Kalmbach Publishing Company’s subscription video website. In this video, you get to see some of our fantastic volunteer gandy dancers building a track panel. Gandy dancer is a slang term…

May 19 Rail Yard Work Party!!!

We will be having a small work party in the rail yard on May 19, working on vegetation maintenance. If you can join the party on Saturday, please send us a message through the ‘contact’ page of our website. We are also having a work party on Saturday, May 26.…

May 2018 Rail Yard Work Party Information

We will be having a work party on Saturday, May 26 at the South Cle Elum Rail Yard, from 10 am to 3 pm. The main focus will be laying track, though we may continue our work to maintain the vegetation in the rail yard also. If you can join…

A new name for the trail? Give your feedback today!

The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission is considering a name change for the Iron Horse State Park Trail /John Wayne Pioneer Trail. Currently, Washington State Parks identifies the whole trail that encompasses the former Milwaukee Road mainline between Cedar Falls (near North Bend) and the Idaho border as the…

Visit the depot this summer – 2018 hours

We will have the exhibit area of the depot open from noon to 4:00 p.m. on the second Saturday of the month from May through October, plus some additional days. You can come see us on: Saturday, May 12 Saturday, May 19 Saturday, June 9 Saturday, June 16 Saturday, July…

POSTPONED – April work party to be rescheduled

The work party we had scheduled for tomorrow is postponed. We’ll be rescheduling it soon, probably either Saturday, May 5 or May 26. We plan to continue building track panels and maintaining the vegetation in the rail yard. Please RSVP if you would like to join us.

Spring 2018 Rail Yard Work Parties

We have ambitious plans for the South Cle Elum Rail Yard in 2018. In addition to continuing our work to beat back the trees and sagebrush, we plan to build some track, improve the signage along the street, refurbish the exterior of our caboose, and construct a much needed dumpster…

5057 Fundraising Challenge: 1 = 3!

4/1 UPDATE: We did it! With a surge of donations at the end, we blew past our goal and raised $2,323.99 this month. With the matching donations, that means we are $4,323.99 closer to having the funds to repaint the 5057. We now have about half the total we’ll need. Thank you…