Photo Essay:17th Annual Depot Railroad Swap

The Livingston Depot Center’s eighteenth annual Railroad Swap Meet last Saturday, April 26, 2008 brought railroad buffs young and old from around the area. Diana Seider, director of the Depot said, “The Swap Meet is a traditional get-together for railroad enthusiasts and exhibitors and vendors from all around the western region. It features railroad antiques, memorabilia, collectibles, books, photos, documents, model trains, and tools.”

The Livingston Model Railroaders ran the extensive model train rooms in the Depot Baggage Room’s basement club space as well as on the Depot east mezzanine while full-size engines rumbled by on the adjacent Montana Rail Link yard tracks.

During the event Livingston artist David Swanson displayed a sample of the forthcoming “Sweat and Steel” exhibit which will be on display when the Depot Museum opens for the season on May 24. 2008 at 9 a.m. Studying the engines to create the oil canvasses was “a bit like jazz if you’re not an aficionado,” said Swanson, “When you learn more about them you gradually acquire an awareness of the details and differences” between individual machines.

After the exhibit at the Depot, “Sweat and Steel” will travel throughout Montana to similar railroad and history museums.

Vendors and presenters came from around the state and the region for the event, which coincides with another annual railroad swap meet at the Masonic Temple in Helena. Larry Rice, the director and curator of the Toppenish, Washington Northern Pacific Railway Museum said he truly enjoys attending the swap meets across the Pacific Northwest, “It’s a lot of fun.”

“The market isn’t like it used to be,” Rice added, “Ebay took away from that.” Rice explained that many railroad enthusiasts now do much of their business from their homes, “But it’s more fun to walk, look, barter and bicker, and swap stories” at a hands-on event.

For more information about the upcoming Depot exhibits, contact the museum at 222-2300. For more information about the Livingston Model Railroaders, contact Mike Fleming at 222-1937.

Below from left: Livingston artist David Swanson puts the finishing touches on a charcoal drawing during the Railroad Swap. Swanson’s pictures of engines and railroad scenes will be the feature of the “Sweat and Steel” exhibit which will open the season at the Depot Museum and travel throughout the state and the region after the local display; a display of railroad switch locks and keys; An extensive collection of Lionel model trains on exhibit for sale or trade during the Depot Railroad Swap Meet April 26. Exhibitors included Ron Kaminski, a collector who handled railroad pension on the railroad retirement board and has now amassed a museum quality collection from around the state and the region. Kaminski is also one of the major lenders in the Depot Museum’s regular collection; a collection of antique train timetables.