Amtrak’s Empire Builder crosses the Columbia River and begins to accelerate away from the Vancouver, WA depot.

I’m a bit biased, but I figure it’s not bad for a first try at tone mapping…

The Cadiz local summits Ash Hill in September ‘07.

The KCKBAR rolls through the desert between Cadiz and Danby

Just after 9am the M-TACPAS, with an SD75 leading, rounds
a curve about 1/2 mile west of west Maryhill

Generally the day was overcast.  Early on the fog hung low on the sides of the gorge but not low enough to make for interesting photographs of trains.  The sun did pop out for a while but when it was at its best (and I was set up for a great photo) the trains dried up.  During the drought I did have the pleasure of listening to the radio conversations of Mad Dog and his conductor making a pick up at Wishram.

With its rear end just clearing west Maryhill, a loaded grain
passes below the grape vines of the Maryhill Winery

Around 3pm the clouds rolled in so much that I ended up not photographing a couple of westbound trains because the scene was so flat.  Instead I prepared for a couple of night photos.  As it ends up I saw 11 trains in 11 hours.

Headed East.  Amtrak 28 sweeps through the curves on its way east to Pasco and Spokane.

While a yard crew takes the first 3/4 of the M-PASVAW over the hill Amtrak patrons wait.  The road power
for the M-PASVAW starts moving back to its train at Eighth Street.

For a few minutes on the morning of January 30th Baring, Wa was a beehive of activity. 
Three trains met here that morning so the railfans converged.

Blue Amtrak.  Amtrak’s Empire Builder pulls up to the east portal of the Cascade
tunnel to await the dispatcher to get an override for the flush system.

Misty Slot.  A westbound Z train plods uphill between Merritt and Berne.

Baring.  Thanks to Amtrak an eastbound Z train uses the siding at Baring
to meet a westbound stack train attempting to stay ahead of Amtrak.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, blue, misty, dark, rainy, moist, BNSF

As it ends up I took one photograph with the trees covered in snow.  On Saturday morning an eastbound Z train just happened to be across the pass while it was still cool enough out that the overnight precipitation had fallen as snow and stuck to the trees.   Thanks to the light amount of snow I was able to photograph the train at west Berne.  Normally this location is so snowed in that  getting a photo here would require snow shoes.

The next photograph of an empty grain train shows just what the entire west side of the pass looked like…green.  Normally there’s a foot or less at Foss River in January but not this year!

This year Robert, Aaron and spent more time between Leavenworth and the Chumstick tunnel than ever before.  There are a few photo locations in the Chumstick and the longer we poke around in there the more we’d like to see.  The photo below is a coal car mid-train in an east bound coal empty crossing the Chumstick Highway where the tracks head into the Chumstick tunnel.  Definitely there are a few locations here that I’ll visit again.

I’ve posted a few more of my photos on railroadforums.com in a thread containing many photos from the group of us at Tracks in the Snow.  There are some great photos in this from many of the group so I encourage everyone to hope over there and take a peek.  Ken and Greg caught a couple I particularly like.   Hopefully there will be snow next year.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, bnsf, stevens pass, snow

Cooks Tree – One of the staples of BNSF’s line through the Columbia River gorge is garbage trains.  Most days see at least one in each direction and Day In North America was no exception. At Cooks U-ROOINB (Roosevelt-Interbay) winds through an S curve led by a former Santa Fe warbonnet.  In 2009 the power on garbage trains made a transition from solid sets of SD40-2s to BNSF’s ubiquitous Dash 9-44-CWs. 

Tunnel 3 – Railroads passing through the Columbia River gorge pass through a variety of geological features including this basalt rock tunnel east of Cooks, Washington.  For the next few miles BNSF’s M-PTLPAS (Portland-Pasco) will dive through four tunnels before arriving at the station of Hood.  The Portland-Pasco train moves manifest freight in BNSF’s Vancouver yard to Pasco for classification.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, railroads illustrated, white river productions, day in north america, DINA, BNSF, columbia river gorge

BNSF’s S-CHCTAC climbs Stevens Pass after meeting the S-TACSTP3 at Merritt

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, snow, BNSF, El Niño 

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, crossing, gate, grain

Aaron prepares for a photograph outside of the right of way.

As all railfans know trespassing on railroad property is not an accepted practice.  From time to time its good to have refresher about this and Joe Perry of chasingsteel.com got that refresher a few weeks ago.  Joe had the opportunity to attend a session on the role of the special agent put on by the Union Pacific in San Bernardino.  I recommend dogcaught readers take a few moments to read Joe’s summary of the presentation as I think it gives a good insight to the railroad and special agent’s point of view and offers a refresher on trespassing.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, trespassing

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, BNSF, Pacific Pride, merger

United Harvest Elevator, Moccasin, MT

So maybe this post’s title is a bit presumptuous but in Central Montana having a multi use track in 2010 is pretty big news.  In a January 11 article, the Lewistown News-Argus (covering Central Montana like the stars!) reports that Central Montana Cooperatives is planning to build a fertilizer hub on the loop track at Moccasin (known as Grove, symbol GVE to BNSF).  The loop track is currently home to United Harvest’s elevator which loads unit grain trains throughout the year.  The two facilities will certainly make Moccasin a much busier stop on BNSF’s Laurel Sub and will increase its importance to agriculture in the area.

Coming Soon – Fertilizer

This new facility will likely improve Central Montana Cooperatives’ delivery efficiency thanks to reduced costs to ship bulk product.  Obviously lower or steady production costs will make farmers in the area quite happy. 

With all this good news I want to stop for a minute and consider the other player in the railroad game at Moccasin, the Central Montana Railroad.  They make their living on the carload business distributed to smaller communities along their line.  With the addition of the fertilizer hub what’s going to happen to them when a co-op in Geraldine decides to truck fertilizer from Moccasin because its cheaper?  CMR and the State of Montana are already in a tussle with BNSF over subsidy payments so I’m afraid that the grain shipping business already lost, the subsidy payments lost, and now the potential for the fertilizer business to be lost may not be good for the future of the CMR freight business.

Moccasin Loop

As a railfan I certainly don’t want to see the CMR lose more business and disappear.  Their line is one of the few operating pieces of the famed Milwaukee Road that still operates 30 years gone and has many scenic highlights that are hard to find anywhere else.  On top of that they host the Charlie Russell Chew Choo that is not to be missed on a visit to the region. 

The CMR aside the fertilizer hub is still good for business in Central Montana and should be looked at positively for Central Montana and Moccasin.   It may however be one straw too many for some in the region.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, montana, grain, fertilizer, community, farming

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, BNSF, maintenance

A loaded Boardman bound coal train climbs Montana’s Rocky Mountains at Mullan Pass.

I heard on my way to work Friday that PGE is planning to close the Boardman Power Plant by 2020.   PGE has been under tremendous pressure from environmental groups and citizens to close the plant.  Studies of the air quality and health of down winders have brought to light issues with burning coal in eastern Oregon.  In addition PGE faced modifications to the plant to meet updated clean air requirements.  With the effort to clean up the emissions from the plant coming under increasing fire from the public, I think the combination was just too much and PGE decided to cut its losses and move on.

Once the coal plant closes that will mean the end to Boardman bound coal trains.  Generally these trains routed over BNSF from the Powder River Basin mines to Huntley, MRL to Sandpoint, BNSF to Lakeside Jct., and finally down the UP to Boardman.  I think this interesting routing along the coal cars emblazoned with a rose made the Boardman coal trains a railfan favorite.

Back for more coal

Like most railfans I will miss these trains.  On the other hand the environmental side of me is happy to see the polluting plant go.  While I’m happy to jump on the bandwagon to remove the plant, the problem I see is most people don’t realize the energy generated by the plant will still have to come from somewhere.  Just because PGE closes the plant doesn’t mean the demand drops.  It will just have to be satisfied with another source.  With that in mind I really would have preferred PGE to invest in the plant to make it cleaner (and keep the trains!) but I think they were going to be in a position where any plan that kept the plant open would have brought more attention than they really wanted.  In the end PGE’s decision was probably the best for them from a public relations perspective.  I’m curious to watch and see where the replacement energy will come from.  Will it be someplace more environmentally friendly than Boardman?

A loaded Boardman coal train slogs it out with Mullan Pass

On the positive side we still have 10 more years to chase these trains.  At least theoretically we do.  My guess is the plant will not run for 10 more years.  The plant previous had mechanical issues so my feeling is once an alternate source of electricity is located if a mechanical failure occurs that will likely spell the end of Boardman Power Plant and the associated coal trains.  Get your photos while you can.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan photo, photography, PGE, boardman, coal, electricity, burn

Cement cars cross the Fallbridge Sub diamond at the “Cannery Hole”.  These diamonds will be replaced once the Port of Vancouver finishes Phase I of the port access project.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, port of vancouver washington, diamond

I met up with the train west of Eavan and found out my friend Michael “Mad Dog” Sawyer was at the throttle.  This gave me a bit more incentive to chase the train as I rarely get a chance to chase one of MD’s trains.   I was a bit repulsed by the Washington Husky hat he was sporting but got over that quickly because the light was just too nice.

West of Eavan the BAR-9 passes the rear end of an Interbay grain train changing crews at Eighth St.

After meeting the BARVAW at west Washougal, the BAR-9 storms away from the meet.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, BNSF, freight, light

That side note aside I ran across a non-graffitied Soo Line grain car today in Vancouver. This is of those classic 100 ton cars with the large “Soo Line” letters and a wheat stem and head. A southbound UP grain train, in which this car was entrained,  had a few bad orders to set out in the NP Pass.  This car passed by me several times during the set out.  When the air test I took a minute to capture these images as I’m certain a 29 year old grain car won’t be around forever.

Soo Line

Rubber Soled Shoes Only

Wheat

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, soo, grain, car, wheat