A look back at Anacortes Railway: 1986

Tommy Thompson has always had a clear sense of goals, a character trait that sets him apart from countless thousands who agonize over their futures. What clearly sets Tommy apart, however, is the 18-inch gauge Anacortes Railway, a unique steam powered train that has finally found a permanent home in Skagit County’s port city.
It was 1961 when Tommy, an engineer at the new Shell Anacortes Refinery, walked the beach at Ship Harbor while waiting for a ferry to the San Juan Islands.
“I had to wait almost three hours,” Tommy recalled. “But while I was walking on the beach, I looked around and thought, wouldn’t it be great to see a train running from the ferry terminal to Washington Park? I didn’t know then what size it would be. But my railway dream was born.”
Tommy, who had moved from Seattle in 1955 as an equipment engineer while the refinery was still under construction, began researching his dream. In 1965 a trade magazine item led him to South Dakota, where a mining company was surplusing equipment including a small compressed air engine. Tommy bought the engine along with more than a ton of spare parts. And not long after, a train delivered his prize to Anacortes.
Immediately the engine created a personal struggle. “I faced a tremendous hurdle, Tommy recalled. “Coming home at night, it was so easy to kick off my shoes, watch television or read. I had to force myself to go out to work on the engine.”
The hurdle, however, soon dropped away under the powerful force of Tommy’s dream.
‘One I was over that hurdle, he said, “I loved it. Then it was hard to get me to go to bed. From the beginning the Anacortes railway has been a one man show. There is only one other 18-inch gauge steam locomotive operating in the world. Exeter, Great Britain. And for Tommy, there is no supply store to aid in turning fantasy into reality. At the outset, Tommy converted the compressed air engine to a coal-fired steam engine, dismantling the machine to create a Forney like that used in elevated railways in Chicago and New York.
Because he couldn’t buy parts, Tommy built a foundry in his backyard. He studied books, cut patterns, carved prototypes and then began to cast parts for the engine.
“I love to work with my hands,” said Tommy. “I’ve had tools all my life. Even when I had my job at Shell I always believed that to be really happy, if one makes his living sitting at a desk, he should be working with his hands to round out the day.”
And so Tommy worked. Five minutes one night, two hours the next. Thirty minutes one day, four hours the next. He doodled, researched, experimented, and then began producing each of hundreds of pieces that ultimately took the form of the handsome 31 passenger Anacortes Railway.
It took Tommy 1,700 hours over a five-year period to complete construction of his steam engine, modeled after an 1877 20-inch gauge model. Some 1,400 hours of work later, he had completed the first of three passenger cars.
“The secret of it,” he said, “is doing a little bit every day. Even if it’s just five minutes. I’ll never be out of things to do and it’s something I truly enjoy.”
Tommy reports that even though he retired as a Shell engineer in 1984, he still uses engineering skills in his work on the railway. Additionally, he points out that he dabbles in almost every trade and profession.
Over the course of 25 years, Tommy has been involved in engineering, welding machining, forging, upholstering, painting, finishing and more.
“You name the subject,” said Tommy, “and you can find it in this railway. It’s so much fun creating things you visualize in your mind. Rather than dreaming about it going and doing it!”
For the first time this year, Tommy ran regularly scheduled public excursions from the historic and Anacortes Depot several blocks to 4th Street. This accomplishment, however, has not been simple.
“Patience and determination have been the big things,” he said. “A train is not like an airplane or a car. The difficult thing has always been finding a place to run it.”
For a number of years the steam-puffing Anacortes Railway locomotive chugged, whistled and climbed over tracks laid at the summer Arts and Crafts Festival.
Last summer, Tommy ran his railway every weekend, 25 days in all. The train now boasts a total record of 28,000 passengers and Tommy’s dreams show no sign of wavering.
“It has accomplished much more than I expected,” he said of the railway’s recent history. “Anacortes hasn’t blossomed yet, but someday it’s going to and I feel this railway is going to be a big part of it.”
For Tommy, retirement has simply meant more hours of work on his train.
“My idea of being an old man,” he says with a grin, “is sitting on a station platform watching trains roll by.”
As for the Anacortes Railway Tommy claims his steam engine is much more than a machine.
“Man never came so close to re-creating himself in a machine as he did with the steam locomotive,” he said. “I know it’s just a piece of machinery, but I really get the feeling it’s having fun.”
While his locomotive is fueled by coal or wood, Tommy’s Anacortes Railway is fueled by dreams. The joy is, he is able to share this dream with others, filling their world for a few minutes with all of the magic trains have offered since the first track was laid.
(Update: September 2021, AnacortesToday.com)
When the City and the Thompson family couldn’t come together on the fate of the custom-built Tommy Thompson train, it was finally decided to give the train back to the family so it could head for a new home in California.