Visit Willow Grove, Somewhere Between Childhood and Forever
Veteran train enthusiast Bruce Harris is a kid again every time he plays with the set pieces he created as a member of the Swamp Creek & Western Railroad Association
“The Port Columbia and Eastern Railway (PC&E) is a fictitious railroad running from Waitsburg in southeastern Washington state across the Cascade Mountain range via White Pass to the tidewaters of the Columbia River with its ocean ports.” —SCWRRA website
Sad News:
Bruce Harris, 80, passed away on April 9, 2023, a week ago and about a year to the day after I met him for an interview. An original member of the Swamp Creek & Western Railroad Association, Harris made such an impression on me last May that I carried over my “Railfanning” write-up for Visit Edmonds to my personal Substack page. What I left out was the look on his face as he remembered so many good times showing the SCWRRA railway to so many model train fans of all ages and how he’d hoped to open up for the holidays again, post-Covid, to see the equally excited looks on the children’s faces again, in person. I wished I’d talked to him more, taken more pictures of just him. You never know when it’ll be someone’s last time on this earth. Rest in peace, good sir.
“There have been two or three female members through the years, a drafter from Boeing, another lady had an autistic son who had other physical problems. She’d bring him back. He absolutely loved trains, so she joined the club, so that he could be here with her. He was a wonderful boy.”
Bruce Harris fondly remembers many upturned faces through the years — four-plus decades’ worth — coming to gawk, point, and marvel at the historically fictitious model railway he and other Swamp Creek & Western Railroad Association members helped build and foster…keeping America’s past alive.
The joy and wonder of everyone passing through touches him deeply, and in turn, his deft, but gentle, guiding hand in this tiny, quaint replica town has touched them just as deeply.
Harris happens to be one of the original SCWRRA members from the late ‘70s, putting the skills he taught as a vocational instructor, like welding, to good use.
The first thing visitors notice is the breathtaking scale of the model railway, a composite of the real routes of real trains back in their 1950s heyday…from the shrubs and trees to the tunnels, mountains, and river beds teeming with imaginary salmon.
Pieced together, minded, and operated by SCWRRA members, the 30’x28’ HO scale (1/87th) model railway runs every third Tues. evening (pending Covid mandates) in the former freight room of Edmonds, WA’s Amtrak BNSF Station on 211 Railroad Ave.
A lot of members draw on their lives for inspiration.
Harris has devoted three decades to a recently updated set, built around Willow Grove — one of the route’s end points with its bustling commerce and lifelike citizens, in constant flux.
“I added all this about three years ago,” he notes. “I rebuilt this area three different times, first in the ‘70s, early-‘80s, then again in the mid-‘80s, and I did it in the ‘90s. We just finished last year.”
In a way, his entire life is here, using the welding he taught to connect memories to history in a replica of a true Bellingham train station — split in half to make full use of spare brick parts and to see the people waiting inside — destroyed by a fire that he spent countless hours researching just to get every detail right…a nursery exploding in greenery for a gardening daughter…a diner culled straight from childhoods driving miles from his small Eastern Washington town of 800 to Walla Walla for Arctic Circle burgers…
Everywhere you look, there are tender, moving pieces of Harris’ heart…a living, breathing, breathtaking replica of a hobby that took America by storm, and left lasting history.
Unfortunately, Edmonds’ moving landmark will need a new home — by Feb. 2023 — due to BNSF’s plans for expansion from a single to double track.
“We’re hoping to save what we can save,” says member and retired KING 5 reporter Glenn Farley. “We’d like to salvage sections of the railroad if we can. We’ll certainly save the buildings, the trees, the dragon…”
SCWRRA members must pack up and find another home to lease, after enjoying such a sweetheart deal in Edmonds for so long, preferably a little bigger for wider aisles and to accommodate the expanding towns and townspeople of Trainsville, USA.
They’re open to locations anywhere in southern Snohomish county, from Shoreline to Everett.
All those memories, time and care.
A painful affair.
Not every piece will make it.
“Six months ago, when we got the letter [to vacate], that was not a good day,” Farley explains. “We knew it was possible, we knew they’d been working on the double-tracking, but they’d been working at it for 25 years. They didn’t do it, and they didn’t do it, and now they’re finally saying they’re gonna do it.”
Staying in Edmonds would be “great, but the real estate market’s very tight. We’ve got some folks sniffing around,” he adds. Edmonds Historical Museum came up, but there’s not enough room.
Everett’s a strong contender, especially with the town’s strong railroad history.
“I can’t go into details, but there’s one possibility, we’re in discussions, so there’s hope. But that’s further north, so let’s see what comes of it,” Farley muses. “Please spread the word.”
SCWRRA will gladly accept donations via PayPal to help with the move. Check the website and Facebook for more details.
In the meantime, you can still marvel, point, and gawk at their incredibly accurate, working model railway on the third Tues. run (call to confirm) and virtually.
And, of course, there are always the real ones going by right outside the back door.
Look for the men, women, and children, and their enchanted, upturned faces, pointed toward art, history, and the heart of America in motion.
Read more about watching trains — in passing and up close — and the railfans behind SCWRRA’s model railway in Visit Edmonds, June 1, 2022.