Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad

The line that today hosts the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad began in 1887 when the Hart brothers built a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow‑gauge track in Tacoma, which was converted to standard gauge and extended in 1890 under the Tacoma Eastern Railroad name. After a series of ownership changes—including control by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad from 1901 until the United States Railroad Administration merged its subsidiaries in 1918—the Tacoma Eastern remained a profitable “National Park” branch, later surviving the Milwaukee Road’s 1980 bankruptcy. In 1980 Tom Murray Jr. founded the Mt. Rainier Railroad and Logging Museum (later the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad) to run tourist trains on the seven‑mile Elbe‑to‑Mineral segment, and Weyerhaeuser transferred the track to the City of Tacoma (now Tacoma Rail) in 1998. The operation was sold to American Heritage Railways in 2016, rebranded, and ceased running in 2020 after the COVID‑19 pandemic; it was purchased by the nonprofit Western Forest Industries Museum in August 2022. A trestle fire on April 30 2025 destroyed a 396.8‑foot bridge between Mineral and Morton, prompting a fundraising drive that had raised more than $207,000 by July, while the railroad announced a revival and resumed limited excursions in September‑October 2023.