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.
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