Joe Bohannon's Chinook Lines is a freelance railroad built upon the demise of Milwaukee Road's Lines West abandonment in 1980. The property in Washington was turned over to the state. Washington wished to keep the railroad industry competitive and vied for an operator.

Chinook Lines was born through former employees, local business and banking and won the bid, operating the former Milwaukee lines from Seattle to Spokane, Portland and British Columbia.

Growth further presented itself through acquisitions of other shortlines within Washington's borders and a merger with BC Hydro in British Columbia, opening a direct line of interchange with BC Rail. Further negotiations also developed with Union Pacific allowing trackage right trains of UP and CP.

While the Milwaukee always claimed Lines West was a loosing enterprise, Chinook Lines has grown it to be a prosperous super regional railroad by focusing on it's employees and business relationships.

The layout is a representation of the former Milwaukee mainline from Cle Elum, WA to Ellensburg, WA. In our version of history, the city of Ellensburg was able to reclaim the land the mainline occupied for spirit of growth and expansion of the local university. This was facilitated by Washington DOT building a cutoff to join the BNSF's paralleling Stampede Pass at what is now Woldale Junction. Chinook now occupies the former Northern Pacific yard in Ellensburg, yet, still contending with BNSF traffic. The line splits off again south of town, at Holmes Junction before turning back east and joining the former Milwaukee mainline towards the small farming town of Kittitas, WA.

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Layout Details

Layout Size - 32 ft x 10 ft, Dedicated Building Era - 1998 Crew Complement - 2 - 4 Control System - Digitrax Dispatching Method - Track Warrant/ABS on former Milwaukee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - Track Warrant/Dark Territory with CTC islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . on BNSF shared trackage. Car Forwarding - Switch Lists