Archive for the 'general info' Category

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

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

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

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.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan photo, photography, PGE, boardman, coal, electricity, burn

Echo, Oregon

Happy holidays everyone!  I hope all of you have an enjoyable holiday season with your friends and family. 

I want to say a big thank you for visiting dogcaught.com and commenting on our posts over the last year.  The sharing and interaction we have only improves our railfanning community.  I look forward to more in 2010 (and the rest of 2009 of course)!

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, union pacific, echo, oregon, snow, crossing

A few weeks ago I gave a presentation at Ignite Corvallis offering a fun introduction to railroad photography mixed with innuendo.  Thanks to Charles Bonville for recording my talk… here’s my 5 minute talk:

As we know the Northwest’s drizzle doesn’t stop the trains. It doesn’t seem to North-westerners either.  This morning I found a father and child along with another couple observing the passage of a northbound UP manifest at Vancouver’s Amtrak station.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, vancouver, washington, union pacific, father and child, station, depot

I spotted these BN center beams blowing through Cunningham, WA a couple of weeks ago.  Take out the second track and concrete ties and this photograph could just as easily be from 20 years ago.  I’m sure there would be less rust on the cars though.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, burlington northern, cunningham washington, center beam, flat car

Sunday before following the activity at North Portland Jct., I found myself at the north end of Portland Union Station for the arrival of America’s Train, Amtrak’s Empire Builder. Since I moved to Vancouver in 1993 this location has grown up so to speak. Prior to this condo building it sat empty while the soils were scrubbed from its previous life as home to the Hoyt St. roundhouse.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, portland, oregon, hoyt st., pearl district, amtrak, empire builder

Trains Magazine published a news item today on the Broadview sub. According to the article coal should start shipping from the mine next week! Wish I could be there.

Here’s a couple of other interesting facts that I did not know from the Trains news wire. The first is about the station of Walter which is the junction with the Laurel sub….

BNSF and Montana local and state government officials dedicated the station in honor of Great Falls resident Walter Breuning, the world’s oldest living man at 112 and a retired railroader who worked for the Great Northern Railroad and its successor companies for 50 years. His namesake junction, called Walter, is located south of Broadview, Mont.

Bravo!

How many trains will this line see?

Within two years, Signal Peak (formerly known as Bull Mountain) is expected to produce more than 12 million tons annually, or three to four trains daily.

I’m looking forward to next year’s visit and I’m hoping the train count is as expected.

[tags] train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, BNSF, Signal Peak, Broadview, Montana, coal [/train]

One part of me would have loved to spend the last week chasing the Daylight to Minneapolis. In this case the economic side won out over the railfan side and I settled for a few pictures around Portland and Vancouver. Here’s some of my favorites.

Prep Work

A quiet moment

On the road…at last

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, daylight, sp4449, stream

As Lon mentioned in a reply to my post last week the BNSF 9316 was pulled off the empty Rawhide coal train at Vancouver due to flat spots. This left me with a hole in my coal train monitoring for the week.

Running an hour and a half behind the C-RHMCEC coal train last week was a C-SCMCEC (Spring Creek Mine) load. The Spring Creek train was lead by an ES44AC BNSF 5892. When I arrived at the depot Sunday morning I heard the BNSF 5892 announce its arrival at Felida so this gives me another week where I can post stats on the Centralia coal train cycle.

Last week the SCMCEC passed 39th St. at 6:30pm on its loaded trek (above) to Centralia. This week Lon tells me that it passed at approximately 5:30pm giving this train an average speed of 13.1 MPH for the week.

So what would speed up this cycle and is it worth the investment to improve the cycle? Both of parts of that question require quite a bit of research and analysis. I’m sure the class Is do that sort of analysis on critical delivery lanes but how important is it for coal delivered to Centralia? I’m sure if the cost of providing delivery service could be improved the railroads would be interested even for Centralia coal. For now though I’m betting the 13-14 MPH average speed is close enough to the sweet spot.

Thank you Lon for the spotting notes.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, coal, bnsf, centralia, spring creek mine

UP’s A-SENP heels into the 45mph curve at the Wildlife crossing south of Ridgefield, WA

Birders and Foamers Unite! Ridgefield South is the place!

Last Sunday when I visited Ridgefield South not only did I see three trains but I saw enumerable birders out enjoying the nice weather. I photographed the coal train from the main 2 side and after it passed a gentleman set up his gear on the main 1 side. He however pointed his very long, very camouflaged, Canon lens into the trees at a woodpecker nest. In the mean time other folks showed up and acted very interested in what he and I were shooting. Finally someone walked down and asked what all the excitement was about. I explained a southbound freight was coming while the other gentlemen discussed the nesting habits of the woodpecker he was photographing.

It was a beautiful day for the pursuit of a hobby at Ridgefield South err…ahh…Ridgefield NWR S Unit.

Technorati Tags: trains, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, UP, Union Pacific, Ridgefield, Washington, Ridgefield NWR

Two Sundays in a row I’ve run across the BNSF 9316 and its coal train. Last week (5/3) I photographed it northbound at 39th St. around 9:30am. This week it passed the same point just a few minutes after 10am.

Think about this for a minute. That train was dumped by Richard and his crew in Centralia last Sunday, taken empty back to Rawhide mine in Wyoming, loaded again, and returned in one week’s time. I calculate the average speed over the one week period at right at 13mph. That’s pretty darn good considering what this train went through….

1. approximately 2200 mile round trip
2. two 1000 mile inspections
3. multiple fuel stops
4. helpers at Helena for Mullan Pass
5. unloading at Centralia
6. loading at Rawhide
7. crew changes in Gillette, Sheridan, Laurel, Helena, Hauser, Pasco, Vancouver, and Centralia

Impressive bit of work I say…

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, coal, BNSF, Centralia, Power River Basin, Rawhide

Today is National Train Day in the United States. So, is it a national holiday? No it isn’t but maybe it should be.

National Train Day originated by Amtrak in 2008 as a what I would consider a marketing campaign. With the declaration they opened their depots, encouraged people to ride trains, and generally brought attention to train travel. In the end I’m certain Amtrak’s hope was more people would take the train thus leading to increased ridership which means more good things for them.

Since it is National “Train” Day, what about the rest of rail transportation outside of Amtrak’s intercity passenger travel? Where does rail transportation get public recognition for the sheer volume of raw materials and finished goods it hauls? Or the sheer numbers of commuters riding heavy rail, light rail, and other mass rail transit? Or the utility freight rail supplies through the transport of coal? How are the freight railroad’s needs communicated to the general public so they are not blindsided by requests for transportation dollars?

For me National Train Day could be an opportunity to whisper in the American public’s ear about these very issues. I think an organization like the Association of American Railroads has a golden opportunity to piggy back off what Amtrak started and raise awareness about the value railroading provides to this country (the AAR did issue a press release where two sentences are dedicated to this). My hope is each year National Train Day grows. Absolutely Amtrak should keep up what they are doing with it however I’d like to see it expand to other agencies from the AAR down to regional transit agencies so the value of all forms of rail transportation can be shared.

Happy National Train Day!

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, photo, photography, national train day, Amtrak, AAR

We are having beautiful weather in Vancouver today! At 2:30pm the temperature is 72 headed for 75. The sun is out and spring is really springing as trees all over the area are greening up! The next few days should be fabulous too so I’m expecting some foamers to be out.

This morning’s train watching was pretty good with fabulous weather and decent train traffic including a bit of an unusual Sunday move. UP’s Z-LCSE rolled off the Columbia Draw just before 10am. This train usually works Brooklyn on Sunday morning which means it doesn’t pass through Vancouver until much later. It was nice to see the Z train in Vancouver for a change.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, spring, vancouver, washington, union pacific

It always seems to take a major disaster to get people’s attention. I’m no different. I’ve been putting off creating a household inventory for, oh, 20 years now. After a good friend and his wife had their camera gear stolen from their vehicle I decided I’d better take their advice and put together an inventory of the gear I use when I’m railfanning.

Using the KISS principle I threw together a simple spreadsheet that contains the columns shown above. I then methodically proceeded through the camera bag documenting all the pieces including CF cards, extra batteries, remote cables, and lens hoods. I obviously included serial numbers where applicable. In many cases I filed away the original receipts in the fire safe so I pulled those out and documented the date of the receipt so I could locate it quickly.

After an hour and a half I had a complete inventory of my camera and radio gear that I use while railfanning. Its not a household inventory but is one step towards one. My hope is this data slowly rots in the fire safe and I never have to use it. If I do need it though I’ve got it all in one place.

How’s your inventory?

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, gear, inventory

I’m lucky to have a wife who is a talented decorator. Tammy also respects my interest in trains and about 10 years ago she decided the family room would be decorated in a railroad theme. Soon it became known as the train room. She chose decorations from my collection of railroad artifacts including a station sign to act as a valence, several historic prints from around Vancouver as a focal point over the fire place, and some art from J. Craig Thorpe to represent some of my favorite train themes.

During our recent flooring project the train room was disassembled and stored so we could repaint. While Tammy considered what would go back she saw me playing with a triptych in Lightroom. She casually asked if there were three photos we could create an on the wall triptych with. I said sure and went about created a collection in Lightroom to give her my selects. Looking at the results we brainstormed various themes including tunnels, steam, and scenes from the Northwest.

Tammy settled on a steam theme and as of tonight three of my photos consisting of details from the CW 10 and the SP&S 700 now hang in the ‘gallery’ section in the train room. I guess this qualifies as my first ‘gallery’ exhibition and I’m thrilled! Here is one of the photos she used:

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, photo, photography, decorating, gallery, cw 10

A while ago I posted possibly my last SD40-2 photo. It just happened to be a UP SD40-2 so I thought I’d better give the BNSF a chance so here’s the last BNSF Santa Fe SD40-2 I photographed.

BNSF 6723 leads the M-PASINB west at Towal, WA on October 26, 2008. Is this the last BNSF SD40-2 I’ll photograph?

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, BNSF, SD40-2, EMD, towal, washington

I didn’t see a manifest train today. I saw: 3 grain, one Z, one bare table, one herder, and 2 Amtraks.

To be fair I left as the M-PTFI was departing Lake Yard and the M-PTLPAS was lining out at 39th St. So, the regulars were there, they were just a bit behind.

BNSF 799 awaits it next assignment on the tail track in Vancouver

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, photo, photography, bnsf, economy, washington