Day 4 we moved east into territory I haven’t spent much time railfanning in. As a kid my family and I made numerous trips on I-90 from Washington east to Laurel, Mt. I was usually glued to the window anytime we were near the tracks. The result is I became somewhat familiar with how the railroad looked from Logan east to Laurel. Rarely did we stop though so I never did get much railfanning done in this area.
Out of Elliston we headed east of Helena to catch our first train at Winston before sunrise. Temperatures were in the high 30s. Fall was fully underway in Montana! We photographed a couple more trains as we proceeded east to the Livingston area. Since it was still early in the day we decided to chase a coal train east.
Between Carney and Big Timber the light was 90 degrees to the track so we decided on a side shot with the Crazy Mountains in the background. When we stopped I hopped out of the rig and walked up the road toward a bull who was enjoying the peace of his field. He didn’t like my approach and stood to show me that he was the boss. The rest of the guys got out and set up for the empty coal train and he continued to keep his eye on us the whole time. Fun times with Montana railfanning!
Our next stop was Reed Point. The funny thing is I think all of us took a liking to this place. We wandered around and captured miscellaneous images of the town since it was so photogenic. In fact it was so interesting we decided that a photo of the town with a train in it was very appropriate.
A train with a CN leader is something interesting so we decided it was worth our efforts to chase it west. We captured it in the S curve west of Springdale, in Livingston getting helpers, on the climb up Bozeman Pass, and finally at East Bozeman at sun down. This is another China coal load on the long road to Prince Rupert, BC. It leaves the PRB and travels via MRL to Sandpoint. Then BNSF to Spokane, Pasco, Vancouver, Seattle, Everett, and finally is delivered to CN at New Westminster BC. CN then handles it north to Prince Rupert. Whew.
One of my favorite photos of the trip was this photo of the coal train climbing Bozeman Pass. The light was just perfect to highlight the nose of the lead unit and provide mottled light on the Absarorka Mountain Range in the background. There are not many images that are more “Montana” than one like this! Beautiful.
