The old Crossing Restaurant site in Vancouver, Wash., next to the 8th Street interlocking east of the Amtrak depot, is disappearing. Crews are removing the six old railcars that surrounded the core building. A private individual has purchased them is apparently plans to store them temporarily on a siding along the ex-NP Yacolt Branch on the northeast side of Vancouver.
The building, which has housed a railroad-themed restaurant/lounge under several different names, had a second story that resembled an interlocking tower. Its parking lot was a good railfan gathering area. Both the building and the parking lot are going away as part of BNSF’s realignment of its main line past the site.
This is sad. My wife (and the kids, too, when they were at home) and I have eaten there several times over the past 25 years, and the food was always “the best”. But it had two problems — one was the location (hard to get to if you didn’t know where it was) and location (once inside the restaurent, only a very few seats had a railroad view).
I’m glad that the cars have been preserved. They had an NP business car and an old sleeper with at least one section and one beadroom still installed. As I remember, all of the cars were either GN, NP or SPS original ownership and all had operated as regular equipment on the Empire Builder, Western Star, North Coast Limited and The Mainstreeter.
The cars are stored on the Portland Vancouver Junction Railroad, which at one time was the NP’s Yacolt Branch, then was sold to the Lewis and Clark Railway. Now we have the PVJR. http://www.pvjr.com/