Archive for the 'motive power' Category

A couple shots from today at lunch… it was slow… three Dash 9s went south as light power (likely for tonight’s outbound Z train) and a southbound UP manifest came through town.

An overview of Vancouver center… from left to right… a couple geeps parked on the tail track. In the background a couple UP SD90 MACs sit at the south end of the NP yard, and the UP manifest begins crossing over at the center.

Closer shot as the lead SD40-2 comes under the old SP&S signal bridge.

I didn’t take any photos due to horrible lighting but here’s a quick glimpse of a busy lunch hour in Vancouver.

I started off heading down to 8th street where I saw… Amtrak? Yep… #27 was running a few hours down and just pulling into town. It had AMTK 74 as the sole unit. After it headed south a Q-PTLHAU was getting ready to leave T6, and the dispatcher lined a G-SIMVAW (BNSF 1027, BNSF 5049) across the diamonds and down the hill.

I drove by the shops, passing a couple Dash 9s (BNSF 1121, BNSF 4178) and saw one more train, a southbound UP stack train (mainly K-Line containers) at 39th street with the UP 5374, 9519, and 4466.

Here’s a few photos from last Saturday, taken on the Seattle Sub before the Foamers Northwest slideshow in Centralia.

The day started out quite wet and foggy, but the red containers of the K-Line stack train show up nicely… shot from the Westside Highway overpass just south of Vader.

Here’s my locomotive catch of the day… a Maine Central GP40 is the second unit on the U-INBROO at Ferrier Road between Vader and Winlock. Gotta love the Guilford G.

The M-EVEABN comes over a small rise at Napavine and picks up speed approaching the control point at Napavine South. Yes, that’s sunshine. We didn’t see much of it.

That’s all for now, folks. Others have posted some pictures over on RailroadForums.

No pictures today, but I did see a few trains. I started out down at 8th street where a grain train was being recrewed. Power was three H2 Dash 9 units (BNSF 5470, 4827, 5372).

As I drove up to the center, one of the yard jobs was shoving a sizable cut of cars (30-ish) down over the hill around 5mph and consequently tying up everything. The dispatcher did a good job of poising things to get moving once he cleared, and once he was off the diamonds the next two movements started coming through: a northbound UP stack train (UP 3822, 4018, 4371) and a short cut of cars that needed to pull out from the middle lead and to the back track. After a few minutes the Camas turn returned and got held up at 8th street.

I drove up to the shops and found some variety… BNSF 877, 5175, 345, and RLMX 8595. Sitting at 39th street was the H-EVEBAR9 with BNSF 4742, 4664, and 795. And back to work I went.

Today’s lunch was not much movin’ and a little bit of shootin’

I started out eating my lunch at the depot, with nothing really moving. I put the 300mm F4L on the camera and attacked a geep that was left unattended:

Okay, okay… so I did shoot one train… well, not really a train… it was a light power set with quite the assortment and not a single Dash 9 in sight: BNSF 573 (B40-8W), BNSF 116 (GP60M), BNSF 7043 (SD40-2), and BNSF 8716 (GP60):

I spent a bit of time today down at Vancouver center. A couple photos for your viewing pleasure…

First, a “Power Bar” ES44DC leads the H-EVEBAR9 out of town past the crossbuck at 11th street:

A leased SD40-2 leads a light power set headed for the M-EVEPAS. Photo taken while the power was on the middle lead.

Another relatively uneventful lunch. Nothing at 8th street. Fairly gray weather so I didn’t play around with any artsy-fartsy shots. Well, that and the fact that I didn’t bring my camera. My new cell phone has a camera on it and I figure I might use it for grab shots in the future but nothing was worthy today.

The southbound M-EVEABN came through town with four units: A H2 C44-9W (yawn), ex-CP NREX SD40-2, green/black SD40-2, and a Heritage I geep.

I cruised up north to the shops, found four geeps sitting there, and dropped down to 39th street to see… yep… the H-EVEBAR was just pulling down, with two Dash 9s and a B40-8W on the head end.

Tomorrow I’ll try to bring my camera to at least get some sort of photo.

The 3985 craze has begun. There’s a bunch of great shots on RailroadForums already and I’m sure more will be posted this weekend. Today is probably the least crazy day to chase, but here I am at the office. Tonight I fly to Boise, rent a car, and drive back to La Grande. Tomorrow I chase back to Boise. Nuts? Yep, but I never claimed to be sane.

Today’s lunch brought me two MRL units, and that was just around the wye… I didn’t even head up to the shops. The northbound herder was led by MRL 303, and a westbound manifest at 8th street had an MRL sd40-2 in Operation Lifesaver paint as the second unit.

That’s on top of an earlier eastbound (probably M-PTLPAS) with an MRL unit on the point.

Pictures later, if I get around to uploading.

This week’s Sunday morning experience was visting the UP 3985 on display at Albina Yard in Portland. We packed up the family and headed down there, arriving under gray skies around 10:00. I chuckled at the arrangement whereby you get to the locomotive by going through the gift shop, but I made it out of there only $8 poorer.

It’s an impressive machine, and I bet it’s even more impressive when it’s under steam. I did ask the guy in the UP Steam garb about the Jolly Roger (pirate) flags that adorn the pilot of the locomotive. His response: “Because we can. We’re kind of the rogues of the UP system, we go wherever we want whenever we want and people get out of our way.”

Here’s a few photos:

Escaping from the office, I went trackside today for just shy of an hour and saw plenty to keep me entertained. I started out at 8th street, where a couple signal maintainers were testing the grade crossing circuit which made for some interesting antics as drivers tried to figure out what was going on. Stopped back at the westbound control signals was a manifest that looked like a Pasco-Lake Yard with a couple of SD40-2s - BNSF 7023/7165.

I headed up to the depot and ate my lunch while an eastbound Tacoma stack train came down and made the turn onto the Fallbridge sub. Another freakin’ stack train… I guess I’ll ask if anyone knows why. Power on the stack train was a green BNSF 8039 followed by two Heritage I FURX units… 7257 and 8124. I waited a while and caught the northbound M-LYDINB come by the depot with the BNSF 616 (patched warbonnet) and the green/black 7011 for power.

I made a loop up to the shops to see what might be sitting around… quite a bit of power was there, I was able to get numbers off the 743, 3008, 3126, 740, 4783, and 5063 (all BNSF). Up at 39th street the H-EVEBAR sat with the BNSF 865, 997, and 535… both of the B40-8W units were in Heritage II paint… that used to be a rarity but it’s becoming more and more common. As much as I like the warbonnet scheme, when it starts to fall apart it looks like crap, and I’ll take fresh Heritage II over peeling warbonnet any day.

A couple weeks ago I got up close and personal with some UP power sitting at the depot.

Yes, it really was glowing this much… I think this was fresh out of CEECO:

Angles:

I am without camera today at work since I figured I’d spend my lunch break at the doctor’s office, but apparently Kaiser doesn’t want to deal with me until tomorrow. I decided to go trackside and see what I could find. I figured since I was without camera, that I would probably either a) see a bunch of trains, or b) see trains with unusual power. I got both.

I started off down at the depot, where Amtrak 506 was pulling in right as I arrived… instead of being led by a NPCU, today it had AMTK 158 on the point with AMTK 470 pushing.

Earlier today on RailroadForums, someone commented how garbage trains seem to have a bunch of ex-BN geeps, quite often not yet repainted. What did I find down at 8th street today? A garbage empty with four green ex-BN units (3 geeps, 1 SD40-2).

Back at the center, the ASENP pulled down (my favorite auto train filled with lumber) to reveal an SD70M followed by two standard-cab C40-8s.

I decided to see what might be up at the shops, as I drove north I missed a southbound garbage load with four units that I saw from a distance. At the shops there wasn’t much power sitting around, just a couple of Dash 9s. I went up to 39th street where the H-EVEBAR sat in two parts… this afternoon’s train will have a BNSF H2 Dash 9, UP Dash 9, BNSF H2 Dash 9 on the head end and a pair of H2 Dash 9s for the DPUs.

And back to work I go, pictureless.

Well, for the first time since GorgeRail, I have my locomotive database up to date with the sightings I’ve recorded out in the field. I have now seen 6,209 unique locomotives out of a total of 11,556 sightings recorded.

To date, the only locomotive/road complete series I’ve seen is all of the Amtrak F59PHI units. I’m down to three remaining BNSF GP60Bs.

It was a slower day at lunch today… I headed down to the wye. BNSF 3611 was shoving a cut of hoppers down the cannery lead. A short while later a couple geeps brought the transfer south. I snapped a nicely-composed shot as they curved around from under the old SP&S searchlight signals, but it’s all botched up because I wasn’t smart enough to reset my exposure compensation after taking some photos last night at -2.

I watched the herder bring out three Dash 9s for the evening Z train before driving up to the shops. Another nice set of older power was there including a B40-8, GP60B, and what appeared to be a CP SD40-2 but it was quite a ways back from the road.

No photos today… the only one I shot was the one I forked up.

Last summer I headed up to Napavine, WA a couple nights after work to watch the rail action. I hadn’t done it yet this year and with the daylight hours getting shorter I decided it was time. Napavine is a small town located at milepost 65 on the BNSF Seattle Sub, about 75 miles north of my hometown of Vancouver.

I got off work around 16:30 and hit the highway. Traffic lessened as I got out of town. At Woodland I overtook a northbound M-LYDINB (Lake Yard/Portland to Interbay, WA manifest) that had an interesting five units for power… a couple Dash 9s, a GP38-2, GP60B, and CN SD75I. I got off the freeway in Kalama to see what was going on at the grain elevators. A loaded BNSF train was parked on the siding waiting to get into its destination, and up near Peavey was a set of power from a UP train… one AC4400CTE and two SD90s… one maroon CEFX unit and one UP unit.

I hopped back on the freeway and got up to Napavine around 17:45. I pulled in next to Robert who had seen two trains in the previous two hours. Fortunately things would pick up soon.

What we saw, possibly not in order:
M-LYDINB
M-TACPAS (featuring MRL 4300 — see below)
X-KAL??? (northbound grain empty apparently going over Stampede)
G-NENINB (northbound grain load that passed while I was getting dinner)
Amtrak #509
Amtrak #508
Amtrak #14 (only about 2 hours late!)
L-NWE676 (northbound local)
IOASE (Oakland to Seattle UP Intermodal) - this was a short one
AGBSE

Gregg showed up with his two boys around 7:45 and stayed for about 45 minutes. It was good to chat with him again and we discussed some plans for next year’s GorgeRail.

I took a few photos… nothing too outstanding. The power highlight for the evening was the MRL 4300 as the third unit on the M-TACPAS. This is the first MRL SD70ACe to come out of CEECO in Tacoma where it was painted. Who knows, this might be the first photo taken of it on the mainline (I know some guys got pictures of it sitting at CEECO). Yeah, it’s a little fuzzy but here it is. It looked really sharp.

Later on I decided to get a bit artsy and screw around with a longer exposure blur shot of a passing grain train at speed… if anyone cares this was done at shutter priority, 1/6 second, ISO 100, exposure compensation -2.

Just before 9:00 I headed south… passed one northbound manifest at MP 113.5 but that was it.

I took a quick half-hour lunch today but did manage to head trackside and had a productive time. I started out heading down to the wye (Vancouver, WA) and was able to take the shot below of a Roosevelt-bound garbage train. It’s always nice to catch older power, and un-repainted power, so catching four Cascade Green geeps on one train was nice.

I then took a drive up to the shops, where I found a few SD40-2s sitting there, as well as a TEBC6 hump set. Heading up to 39th street revealed the H-EVEBAR9 backing into the B yard with three H2 C44-9Ws on the point. Not bad for half an hour.