Fellow Passenger Rail Advocates,
RSVPs are needed for our October 8 Bellingham meeting. The good folks at Western WA University need RSVPs! A very good meal (cost $17) is planned and the people at WWU’s Viking Union need to know how much food to prepare.
Some travel info. For those of you from most of King County and north: Travel to/from Bellingham’s Fairhaven Station by Amtrak works for our meeting. Take northbound Train 510, departing King Street at 7:45 AM. You can return on southbound Train 517, departing Bellingham’s Fairhaven station at 7:37 PM. Good transit bus service can take you to/from Fairhaven Station and the WWU campus. It is possible some locals might be able to carpool you to/from, but we’ll have more complete bus info, maps of WWU campus, etc. in a few days.
For us south of King county, Amtrak schedules only work if one is able to stay two nights. But whether to Bellingham by train, bus, or private vehicle, please RSVP to Lloyd right away!
November 12th Annual Meeting in Lacey
Less than three weeks until All Aboard Washington’s Annual Meeting. The November 12 event will be located in the main dining room at Panorama, {1751 Circle Drive}the upscale senior community in Lacey, east of Olympia and just a couple miles from Centennial Station. You from out of town are encouraged to travel by Amtrak, where you’ll be met and shuttled to/from Panorama by Thurston county AAWA members.
Festivities will start at 11:30 AM, with music provided by professional pianist Jerry Wagner. Swing -era tunes, featuring railroad themes, and songs celebrating the armed services in honor of Veterans Day will be emphasized. And at 11:30 you’ll have the opportunity to (silently) bid on high-quality donated goods and services, the proceeds of which assist AAWA in our advocacy work.
An excellent buffet lunch ($20) will start at noon. Chef is Mike Turk, whom I’ve known for nearly 35 years!
Our program, starting at 1 PM, will feature two Oregon men who will honor the 40th Anniversary of the American Freedom Train, which you over-age-fifty folks recall was part of the USA Bi-Centennial Celebration. A second presentation will be by Talgo’s Josh Coran, who will update us on the his firm which manufactures our Amtrak Cascades trains.
We’ll also have my (brief!) summary of Election 2016, as it will likely apply to rail issues, and brief reports from spokespeople for AAWA’s task forces.
All are welcome to our meeting and we look forward to having you there. Please RSVP, if possible, but not required to LloydFlem@allaboardwashington.org
See you on the 12th!
Lloyd