A little history lesson. The area I will be modeling is located on the Eastside of Seattle, Washington. The railroad territory has a complicated and storied history. I'll get a longer history written up but for now here's the basics. The first railroad was the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern, in the late 19th Century. This was quickly purchased by the Northern Pacific. In 1970 the Northern Pacific, Great Northern, CB&Q all merged to create the Burlington Northern. In 1995 Burlington Northern merged with AT&SF to create the BNSF Railway. The BNSF railway sold the line to King County in the early 2000's, who then sold it to the Port of Seattle, and now a shortline railroad operates parts of the line (that whole saga could be a book!). Like any good branch line it used to have a lot of traffic but as the years went by and the BN (and BNSF) ran off customers the branch slowly died.
