Last night after work I took a trip eastward with Steve riding shotgun, hoping to catch a few westbounds in the late afternoon sunlight in the Columbia River Gorge. Unfortunately the westbounds just weren’t going to cooperate. Heading out of town, we made a quick stop in Washougal and saw the Camas turn shoving 60 cars into the siding.
We went over Cape Horn, finding a westbound grain train in the hole at Skamania, where it apparently had sat for several hours without a crew. Continuing eastward, the scanner was quiet, with no detectors alerting us to any trains. We pushed east as far as Bingen and stopped for a gourmet railfan dinner at the golden arches.
We decided to head back to Cooks to see if anything would happen on the rails. As we passed through the tunnels we realized that the Empire Builder was due soon if he was on time. After a long phone call where Steve had to explain to Julie several times that he didn’t want the train status for Benton, Washington, we found it left Vancouver on time. There werent’ many possibilities for eastbound shots in this lighting so we set up for what we hoped would be a decent going-away shot from the boat launch at Drano Lake. The lighting wasn’t as nice as I’d hoped… later in the summer you get some side light on the near side of the train, but apparently in April you get this:

After watching him go by we heard a westbound going into the siding at Bingen. We repositioned to the west end of Drano Lake and got down near the river. This was a new angle for Steve, and I thought it might be for me as well, but as I climbed down I realized I’d been there once before. The train wasn’t that special, mixed up power and a bunch of empty garbage containers, but the lighting was perfect for this shot and it turned out as planned:

The garbage train went in the hole at Cooks to meet the eastbound Z; we stayed put and Steve went for the going-away shot:

We were losing light at this point and decided to head west in the hopes we might leapfrog our one westbound for the day. He made a quick meet at Stevenson but we didn’t pass him until the Skamania area. We kept going and got off Hwy 14 at East Washougal, setting up for one last shot of the garbage empty as he came into town:

Overall I was disappointed with only having one westbound, but I got at least one good shot, and that’s one more than I would’ve gotten had I stayed home.
Reflecting The Times:
Fast Trains:
Tracks in the Snow: