Depot Museum welcomes new addition to storied past

The Northern Pacific Railway Depot Museum in Ritzville has unveiled a new addition to its storied history, thanks to a generous donation from another regional museum.

The addition, announced by museum curator L.R. Keith, is a Northern Pacific Railway conductor's uniform that is in mint condition. The uniform was donated by Dale Swant of the Inland Northwest Rail Museum in Reardan.

The Depot Museum first inquired about the possible donation of the uniform at a model train show earlier this year in Spokane. As it turned out, the INWR had an extra uniform, and Swant delivered the uniform to the Depot Museum on Memorial Day.

With the uniform in hand, the next step in the equation was to acquire a mannequin so the uniform could be properly shown off. Keith got in contact with a friend, Deidra Ranger, who purchased and donated a mannequin to the museum for the uniform to be displayed on.

The mannequin, Keith noted, is fully dressed with socks, shoes, undergarments, t-shirt, white dress shirt, black tie and the vest and jacket. A wig and glasses were also added, which Keith says was done to give the mannequin character. The museum is also considering getting the mannequin aged to make it look older, but a final decision has not yet been made.

The reason the museum is interested in aging the mannequin is to make it look as historically accurate as possible. Keith explained that most Northern Pacific passenger train conductors were required to have "whiskers," or seniority, to get that assignment. But it wasn't totally uncommon for a younger conductor to be assigned to a passenger train if the senior conductor had requested or needed time off.

The uniformed mannequin is on display for visitors to see when they walk into the museum, standing behind a North Coast Limited (NCL) gate. The NCL drumhead was obtained from Dick Greene, formerly of Odessa. Greene was a teacher with the Odessa School District and a railway book author.

The gate and bracket for the drumhead was made by Ritzville's Lamar Thiel. The drumhead-which is lighted-was mounted onto the gate of the lounge car of the passenger train, which was the end car of Northern Pacific's passenger trains.