Man plans coffee shop, museums in Fairhaven railroad cars

JARED PABEN

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A local man plans to move three antique railroad cars from Fairhaven to property on the Mount Baker Highway and install a coffee shop and two museums in them.

The plan by Mark Bjorklund, the owner of subcontracting company The Steel Trowel, would preserve the railcars that have been sitting on a lot at 12th Street and Harris Avenue since 1977. They've held everything from a pet grooming business to a sandwich shop and hair salon.

Bjorklund, who owns motorcycle shop Super Rat with his brother Carl, plans to orient the cars to look as if they derailed, calling it "the train wreck." He'll build patios between them for seating. He plans to ensure they grab passing motorists' attention.

"I'm going to make it pimp, like people are going to be stoked to go here," he said.

"I don't want them to look like old, crusty trains rusting in a field," he added. "They'll have curb appeal."

The property is five acres he owns near Mount Baker Highway and Sand Road. Drivers will be able to access it from Sand Road, ordering coffee at one end of a car and then driving around to the other end to pick up their orders, he said. In a second car, he plans to create a vintage motorcycle museum. He plans a museum of sorts in the third one, although he's not yet sure what it'll look like.

Landowner Ralph Black will donate the cars to Bjorklund, who has done work for Black for years, on the condition the cars aren't destroyed. It will be difficult and expensive to move them, Black said.

"It was tough to find anybody that really wanted to take on the challenge of moving them," Black said. "We're real happy they're being put to good use and not just being torn up."

On the Fairhaven property, Black and his brother, Mike, plan to build a mixed-use building reminiscent of the Fairhaven Hotel that once sat there.

The train cars date from the early part of the 20th century. The steel car along Mill Avenue is largely in its original condition and was built sometime between the late teens and 1930, said Bellingham resident Richard Miller, a longtime train enthusiast.

The middle car was built between 1903 and 1910, and it doesn't have steel plates hammered over its wood exterior, he said. And the southern car, near Harris Avenue, was a private car that carried a railroad superintendent and the superintendent's staff. It was connected and disconnected from trains to go wherever the superintendent traveled, Miller said.

Bjorklund has applied to the city to demolish the decks around the cars. He plans to move them in late October, hoping to have the coffee shop open by February. The museums may take a year to set up, he said.

The cars are worth about $70,000 as scrap metal, Bjorklund said, but it's not about the money. He's been bugging Black for about a decade about the cars.

"They're a piece of Whatcom County history, so they need to stay and be a museum," he said. "It's an Indiana Jones thing."