Click the photos below for a larger view. Copies of these photographs may be purchased from the Museum.

Engine number 49 is photographed with a load of logs from the hills outside of Fall City.

A crew pauses in the middle of the span for a photograph, sometime between 1889 and May of 1900.

Here the train lies beneath tons of debris from the collapsed tressle. This Kinsey photograph was taken in May, 1900.

By June 1900 crews built temporary tracks, attached a new undercarriage to the engine, attached cables to a steam donkey at the top of the hill, and began to extricate the engine and cars from the Raging River. Kinsey photograph.

The following was contributed by Jack Kelley of Fall City.

BURLINGTON-NORTHERN RAILROAD TRESTLE  NO. 27.2 

The 880 foot long railroad trestle which originally spanned the 110 foot deep ravine where the Preston-Snoqualmie Trail now crosses the Raging River, about a mile and a half south of Fall City, was first built about 1889 by the Seattle, Lakeshore and Eastern Railroad. This structure was constructed entirely of wood, including a 100 foot wood truss which spanned the river.  The trestle collapsed with a train going over it in 1900, dropping many cars, including the engine into the river, killing the engineer.  The trestle was rebuilt and in 1901 became the property of the Northern Pacific Railroad.  About 1910 the wood truss was replaced with a twin-steel girder span in the portion over the river.  Subsequently, the Northern Pacific became the Burlington Northern in 1970.   Rail service to the Snoqualmie Valley was discontinued circa 1974 and in 1982, the trestle was torn down by Burlington-Northern before it could be acquired by King County as part of the Preston-Snoqualmie Trail.

 Sources:  Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum, Dave Sprau and King County Parks.