Archive for the 'motive power' Category

Yesterday Vancouver had a surprise foreign visitor, KCS 4100 which I believe is the class unit of their SD70ACe series in the newer Heritage paint scheme. It was the trailing unit on a westbound train at 8th street (in some amazingly craptastical lighting… but you take what you can get, right?).

Recently I went about town for some photo taking opportunities and managed to grab a few decent shots of a Portland & Western freight rolling on through Union Station downtown. It’s been gorgeous the last few days and I just figured that at least a few trains ought to be photographed.

For some reason there is a strong association between Christmas and trains.  Stores include trains in their holiday displays.  Many folks have a loop of track around their tree.  And, if you’re the Oregon Zoo, Christmas provides a great time to light up Washington Park and Zoo Railway’s #1 steam locomotive as part of ZooLights:

Merry Christmas to all!

Yesterday morning I was sitting at work and got an instant message from Steve saying that he heard the SP&S 700 on the radio going past an approach signal at MP 769.  Since that’s about five blocks from my office, I decided it was a good time for a break and headed that way in a brisk walk.  The locomotive was onto the OPR, and unfortunately unless I was going to trespass my photo angle would be aiming southeast into the sun.  I believe the term “craptastic” applies, but hey, it’s a steam train, so I’m going to post it.

Vancouver has a modest (very modest?) engine service facility just south of 39th St. Power is serviced here as required with a preference given to fueling at Hauser, ID if there’s enough gas in the tank. While waiting at the 39th St. crossing a few weeks ago I captured the Z train power getting the once over.

A BNSF crew fuels and checks a set of power before its next assignment.

Last weekend, the UP 844 headed west from The Dalles, Oregon to Portland, where the SP 4449 joined the excursion to head north to Tacoma. I shot the train at several locations; here are a few photos.

UP 844 broadside at Rowena

844 with a yellow train and yellow scotch broom just east of Cascade Locks

UP 844 and a bunch of steam at Dodson

Leaving Vancouver, the train passes under Fruit Valley Road

Through the S curve at Steilacoom

At Mosier. No further explanation needed

Like every other railfan in the northwest, I was out chasing the 844/4449 steam special last weekend.  I haven’t posted steam photos because I’ve been busy with GorgeRail preparations (you’re going to be there, aren’t you?) but I wanted to share this photo I took of an eastbound UP train while waiting for the steam special.  When I setup at this spot at Rowena, the lighting was great.  However I was waiting on the UP, and they can’t run a passenger train on time even when it’s their own train on their own rails… so by the time the steam train got there, the lighting had gone all crappy.  This was taken when the lighting was only partially crappy:

Yesterday was a fairly typical March day in the Pacific Northwest… gray, a bit chilly, with the threat of rain (that materialized in the afternoon).  Nonetheless I headed east with a few railfan friends for some Columbia River Gorge railroad action.  Gotta brush up on my local railfan skills before GorgeRail, ya know?

Here are a few shots from the day… even though the weather wasn’t cooperative, we had some nice power to work with on the trains we saw:

Pick some power; you’ll likely find it on the Z-PTLCHC at North Dalles

Look, Amtrak isn’t the slowest, most broke-down thing in the photo!
The locomotive on Empire Builder #27 passes an old truck at Hood.

I got sick of the Grinstein Green units in coal country but they’re a nice change of pace in the Gorge.
Stay tuned for some of Steve’s photos…

The cold weather lately has me longing for some sunshine… like that we saw last year when GN 274 went to Crusin’ Sherwood.  Shown here trailing in Milwaukee.

Last week I was on a 5-day vacation with some family, and as we were driving through Wheeler, Oregon I noticed some centerbeams parked on the Port of Tillamook Bay’s tracks through town.  In a brief discussion, I mentioned the unique cow-inspired paint scheme and my mother-in-law didn’t seem to believe me.

As we came through Garibaldi, I saw a moving train across the inslet, and we eventually caught up and overtook the train.  I was quite happy to see POTB 101 on the point featuring the bovine paint.  After a brief wait, I was able to grab this shot as the train moved along some tide flats south of Garibaldi:

A quick trip to the center today led to a stack train departing from a crew change just as I arrived. First, it comes around the curve onto the yard lead as a group of safety-vest-laden recruits walks near an adjacent track:

As the train came around the corner, I did a double-take trying to identify the second unit. And here I present the foamy picture of the day of MRL 680, an ex-NW high-hood SD45.

And that’s the train of the day…

I went down to the depot area today during lunch… things were fairly slow but I got a few shots.

BNSF Track Inspection car “Skagit River” has been parked on the president’s track for a few days now:

A pair of geeps was being used to switch a long cut of cars that had come up from the hill… shown here at 8th Street:

The rumors are already out, there might be a Baldwin and/or a PA at next year’s Crusin’ Sherwood event.  Read more on RailroadForums.

Saw this today at the Vancouver Yard. I think this is the first ex-MRL unit I’ve seen with these reporting marks.

I went trackside Friday at lunch. It wasn’t busy but I caught this unit, which was the first time I’d seen this color/paint scheme in person. I present to you a pair of photos which are nothing special as a photo, but rather just the result of some railfan taking some grab shots:

It’s a sad commentary on the lack of daytime railroad activity (due to maintenance) that I’m quite satisfied and happy when I see one train moving through the Vancouver terminal during my lunch hour.

Today’s treat is the ZSEMN with a couple 70Ms and an ex-SP tunnel motor:

Putting locomotives into my database a few minutes ago, I recorded the 6,936th unique one I’ve seen. Me, being the big dork that I am, chuckled that it was a UP loco.

Tomorrow morning I hop on a plane for a short flight down to Sacramento, where I will be spending four days related to Winterail. In addition to attending the main Winterail show, I’m presenting a short program on the Mt. Hood Railroad at the Railfan & Railroad pizza party tomorrow night. The remainder of the time will be spent railfanning… exact plans are pending but I hope to spend time in the East Bay area, along the Cal-P, Franklin Canyon, and the Feather River Canyon.

Being the locomotive-chasing fool that I am, I plan to visit the yards in Roseville, Stockton, and Richmond. I’m up to date on my locomotive database tonight; I’ve recorded 13,323 locomotive sightings for a total of 6,875 unique locomotives. Breaking 7k on this trip would be neat but isn’t likely to happen unless I get extremely lucky. A couple of lucky bastards called me tonight to gloat that they’d just got done taking some night shots of UP 1983 at Roseville (earlier they were chasing a train led by SP 101 on Donner).

Say hi at Winterail, I’ll be the guy wandering around in the dogcaught.com hat

Things haven’t been overly exciting around Vancouver lately, the weather has been gray and various forms of wet. Train traffic has been light due to heavy maintenance on the Fallbridge sub, and all of the interesting locomotives have been parked buried at the shops rather than leading trains. That said, I have managed to take a few photos.

From the “strange bedfellows” department, a pair of ES44s along with a warbonnet GP60M:

This struck me as an interesting pose as I snapped this photo:

And the new angle where I found one could get some elevation without blatantly trespassing, this is a 3-hour late #27 approaching 8th street with the towers of the Interstate Bridge in the background:

I’m still not thrilled with this, particularly the shadow, but I really think there’s a shot to be had here:

I made my frequent Sunday morning loop this morning, heading over to Albina yard, then Barnes, then back to Vancouver to see what locomotives I could find. The catch of the day was a pair of Loram GP40s at Barnes (LMIX 110 and LMIX 111), looking very nice and clean in the yellow and black Loram paint scheme. I wasn’t in a position to get a photo without getting in trouble, so I didn’t.

The oddity for the day was catching a pair of AC4400s running long hood forward dragging an auto train towards Barnes.

A southbound UP Z train at the Vancouver depot had an interesting leased unit… here’s a cab side view:

As a bonus image, here’s a shot I took on the 2nd of the interesting variety of power parked at the Vancouver shops. I like the absence of orange.