The Empire Builder Portland section speeds through the east part of Vancouver on its way to towards its destination of Portland, OR.

The first part of July has be quite busy for me and my family.  Thanks to a vacation out at the coast, a picnic, and other miscellaneous activities I’ve been tied up with non-railfan activities which has limited my available time to write up blog posts.  The good news is I’ll have a few more railfan activities though August and September so my posts should be more regular.

In the mean time here’s a couple of photos of an empty grain train from Rivergate crossing the Columbia Draw.

On Sunday morning traffic was quite heavy despite the fact it was Independence day.  Hopefully that meant crews were getting to work home for holiday celebrations.   After consulting ATCS I headed out to Columbia Springs park to watch the Fourth of July parade of (3 westbounds and 1 eastbound) including the 4669 on the westbound Z-CHCPTL.  Like normal when Amtrak is late the morning Z is out front.  On Sunday Amtrak was around and hour down so not only was the Z train in front but so was a westbound V-HYDPTL.

A north bound UP M-HKSE rolls north through Woodland, Wa. at the end of the day on May 16, 2009.

I want to issue a 6″ correction to my June 13th post about high water on the Columbia River.  I said…

Looking at the photos closely in February there were 13 1/2 courses on the pier between the cap and the water.  Today there were only 9.  Estimating a course at 18″ puts the river nearly 7′ higher than in February.

After measuring the courses on one of the piers next to 8th Street today I found out they are each 24″ tall which means the water was closer to 9′ higher than in February.