by Steve Eshom on January 30, 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.
Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, railroads illustrated, white river productions, day in north america, DINA, BNSF, columbia river gorge
by Steve Eshom on January 29, 2010
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
Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, snow, BNSF, El Niño
by Steve Eshom on January 27, 2010
by Steve Eshom on January 26, 2010
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
by Steve Eshom on January 25, 2010
