by Steve Eshom on August 29, 2010
Leaving some place you really enjoy is never easy. I’ve often considered what it is about Montana that makes it so hard for me to leave. I’ve come to the conclusion there is so much I love about Montana that I can’t a single item that makes it so intriguing to me. What I love about it is not just Stanford, Noxon, or Laurel, or mountains or plains, or wide opens spaces, or big sky, or the people, or my family legacy. It is some odd combination of these items that just doesn’t exist anywhere else. I don’t know exactly how to describe the chemistry but it is there for me once I cross the border. 
I’m not saying there is anything wrong with Washington, Oregon, or Idaho, they are just different. Maybe Washington represents the realities of life for me too much and that makes it less magical? Whatever it is I can’t wait to get back to Montana again. 
Until my next visit I can enjoy the photos I took and dig through the memories of photos I didn’t take to allow myself to look back on this place fondly. 
by Steve Eshom on August 27, 2010
Yesterday’s Great Falls Tribune reports that a coal mine is being explored south of Stanford in Judith Basin County. My mother-in-law and her friend are both excited about this as the prospect of a new big business in the county would bring in more jobs and more tax revenue to the area. Stanford and many parts of the county could use an infusion of cash to fix up roads and deal with miscellaneous items that have them behind larger cities in the region. Right now a new industry in the county sounds like a good deal but who knows how it will be received when more serious work starts.
A coal seam appears out of the side of a hill west of Lehigh.
In terms of railroading the article indicates the mine would be south of Stanford. After going up town my mother-in-law’s friend found out the mine would be near Lehigh. Lehigh is located a few miles southwest of Windham, MT. As the article indicates the Great Northern did mine coal at this location and there was a branch from the mainline at Windham. If you look closely at an aerial view you can clearly see evidence of the branch leaving the main just west of town and heading out towards Lehigh. There are also some concrete structures still remaining where coal was loaded.
Remnants of the coal operation at Lehigh Montana
With many years of planning and development to go there are many details to work out including where a junction with the Laurel sub would be and the route the line would take. Just like Signal Peak north of Billings this should be and interesting project to watch.
by Steve Eshom on August 1, 2010
by Steve Eshom on June 20, 2010
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.
by Steve Eshom on June 19, 2010
Remember when BN trains had numbers? You might not because for the majority of the last 15 years BN successor BNSF has used alpha symbols for their trains. Train numbers were a bit harder to decipher but after hanging around for a while I could pick up on where most trains were headed. It was pretty easy for me to tell where the trains went to on the west end because I could observe them. The eastern origin or destination was still a mystery for me. Some trains like 1/2 and 3/4 were obvious but as the inter modal era started in the mid-1980s the proliferation of numbers was tough to keep up with. If only we had the Internet in the 80’s because pages like this would have been very handy.
This brings me to the photo above of train 13. 13 (being an odd number was a westbound) was a Chicago to Portland inter modal primarily made up of trailers. Other than train 1, it was the hottest train on the BN in the gorge. On September 10, 1994 when I photographed 13 at Wishram it had just finished a crew change and was proceeding west on a clear signal. As was typical of crew changes on hot trains this one was quick.
Like most BN inter modal trains in the 90’s train 13 ran with SD40s, B30-7As, and B39-8. The version I caught at Wishram was lead by BN SD40-2 8054, a B39-8, and MRL SD-40 209.
I don’t miss train numbers too much, but I have to admit it would be fun to photograph train 13 with the gear I have today.
