Archive for January, 2010

On Wednesday I received the February 2010 issue of Railroads Illustrated.  Inside I was pleased to find two of my photographs published as part of the 2009 “A Day In North America” feature.   That day was very enjoyable for me as I was able spend time exploring locations I don’t normally visit on a Gorge tour.  If you don’t have a copy, I recommend you pick one up as the DINA photos are carefully selected and there is a nice feature on the east end of the Milwaukee Road electrification.

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.

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This morning I’m on my way to Stevens Pass for a winter railfanning adventure.  From other railfan reports there isn’t much snow up there this year.  In fact 6″ is the report from “the slot” where the photo below was taken in January 2008.  During that winter several snowfall records were set and BNSF was one big snow storm away from not having any where to put snow in some locations.  Fortunately for them the weather held and a concentrated effort with the slot train through February cleared out the tight spots.   Thanks El Niño. 

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

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This is how most people view trains…

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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.

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With the merger partner logos on the side of the locomotive fading badly the nose emblem is becoming the most interesting part of the 2075.

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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

Looks like BNSF’s Seattle sub maintenance project is now in progress.  Ties litter the right of way from Vancouver to Ridgefield and there is plenty of MOW activity around.  Looks like a busy couple of months on the Seattle sub.

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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.

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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.

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This morning the light was pretty typical of January in the Northwest.  The sun is still low and a high layer of clouds from an incoming storm were filtering it a bit.  As I got on the road I heard the H-EVERBAR9 (the BAR-9) finishing up some work in Vancouver’s B yard so I thought it would make excellent fodder for the light.

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

I’ve always been fascinated with the Soo Line though for some odd reason it feels like an exotic foreign railroad. Last time I looked at a map the upper mid-west of the U.S. is very much still within our boundaries so I’m not sure where this feeling comes from. Maybe its the fact the Soo Line was a Canadian Pacific subsidiary for most of its history?

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

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