Western Railroad Discussion > Unusual traffic on the Stampede Pass Line

I noticed some unusual traffic on the Stampede Pass Line through Auburn, WA today.

Instead of the usual empty unit grain trains and mixed freight traffic I usually see on this line, I saw a westbound train of coil cars, followed by an eastbound unit empty unit coal train. I can't remember the last time I saw a unit coal train pass through Auburn, empty or full.

Are these one time occurrences, or can we expect to see additional regular trains on this line due to the closure of the Trans-Alta mine in Centralia, WA, and the need for Powder River Basin coal. In the past, the mine next to the power plant provided almost all of the coal required. Does anyone know how many unit trains of coal the Trans-Alta power plant goes through in a week?

Unit grain train volumes through Auburn also appear to be up, perhaps due to the roof recently installed over the ship loading area at the TEMCO grain loading facility in Tacoma, allowing for loading of ships even during rain. Things may get interesting between Seattle and Tacoma when additional Sounder trains start running...

It would be interesting to see a loaded unit coal train over the Stampede Pass line. I wonder how much power would be required? Four SD60M's were assigned just to pull the empties east today. Sorry, I didn't have my camera handy.

It would be ironic for this line that was almost rail trailed to become a critical link for BNSF. Perhaps a resurgence of traffic on this line will cause King County Executive Ron Sims to think twice before ripping up all of the tracks on BNSF's Eastside/Snohomish rail line. I was at Van Lierop Farms in Sumner, WA today, and the Cascade Foothills bike trail and the Meeker Southern Railroad seemed to be sharing the former NP Prairie Line ROW just fine. Yes, a fence between the rail and trail is ugly, but I think function should be weighed more heavily than aesthetics.

benthere Wrote:
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> It would be interesting to see a loaded unit coal
> train over the Stampede Pass line. I wonder how
> much power would be required? Four SD60M's were
> assigned just to pull the empties east today.

Those would be the four units which pulled the loaded train west from the coal fields in Wyoming. The sets usually stay together for a few trips. Of course, the loads go via BNSF's route in the Columbia River Gorge.

Paul Birkholz
Sheridan, WY

The reason you saw the empty coal train is because of a work window in the Columbia River Gorge. It was easier to route the train around the gorge than through it. There has a been a increase of coal traffic to the plant (which supply's 37% of the energy needs of Puget Sound Energy) since the mine closed. Currently around 8 trains a week, but most return empty via the Gorge. Empty coal trains going over Stampede is not exactly unheard of, I'd say on average one train a week goes that way.

And you have another one headed your way, it is getting ready to depart northbound from Centralia. Power is the BNSF 8231, BNSF 8209,(SD75M's) BNSF 9228 (SD60M) and the BNSF 8848 (SD70MAC). The train yesterday had the BNSF 8295 (SD75M), EMD 9095 (SD60), BNSF 9488 (SD70MAC) and the BNSF 8226 (SD75M). They would likely either hold a coal load or run the load over the UP side of the Gorge before they would run it over either Stampede or Stevens Pass's in times of desperate measures to move traffic (extreme congestion, derailment, ect). There was 8 trains in the cycle for a while there, but now there is currently 6 trains in the cycle. Now the empty unit steel coil train is a mystery..........

I caught the NB empty coal (8295-OWY 9095-9488-8226) coming through Tacoma yesterday early afternoon. It was a nice change of pace. They used to do that quite often, run the empties eastbound over Stampede.

Stan

The coil cars are "probably" from the steel mill in Woodland..just N of Kalama. All that traffic usually goes via the gorge.
Roger

funnelfan Wrote:
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> The reason you saw the empty coal train is because
> of a work window in the Columbia River Gorge. It
> was easier to route the train around the gorge
> than through it. There has a been a increase of
> coal traffic to the plant (which supply's 37% of
> the energy needs of Puget Sound Energy) since the
> mine closed. Currently around 8 trains a week, but
> most return empty via the Gorge. Empty coal trains
> going over Stampede is not exactly unheard of, I'd
> say on average one train a week goes that way.

Thanks for the info. Do you know how long the work window is in effect? I'd like to get some photo's of the less common traffic on the line, but the weather today is not very friendly for photos.

Saw a loaded grain train last Monday leaving Ellensburg with 2 -9s on the point and 2 on the rear.

Tom

Boy, the action that I miss in my own neighborhood...!

In regard to the unit coil steel train, are these the gons with the white covers on them? If so, there are commonly strings of them on the Stampede trains - perhaps today's string was longer and/or other traffic was nonexistent due to Easter slowdowns, so it only "appeared" to be a unit train. Just a thought.

I'm looking forward to perhaps seeing the westbound DPU grainer. It'd be a nice change from the eastbound empty parade.

-Dave

The gons with white covers are Red Dog Mine empties going back to Roberts Point

benthere Wrote:
> Do you know how long the work window is in effect?

According to the BNSF website, May 15.

Funny that all this traffic is being diverted towards Stampede, as there aren't enough crews available out of Pasco to run them, and there's a derailment of LPG cars in Yakima, so nothing is getting through there, anyway.

But, gotta protect that work window on the fallbridge. . .

They will just park them until crews are rested. Generally, they try to flip w/b crews back on waiting e/bs.

WAF Wrote:
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> The gons with white covers are Red Dog Mine
> empties going back to Roberts Point

That's right - I forgot the details. In any event, is it possible that these are what the poster saw, or am I the only one who could confuse the two? :-)

-Dave

That sounds like the cars I saw. I figured it was a unit train since I didn't see any other types of cars on the train, but it may have been just a long string. When I've seen these cars on this line in the past, they have been mixed with box cars and center beam flats. I'll keep my eyes open for one of those DPU grain trains.

Thanks for all of the info.

The PASVBT and PASSEA handle the empties and usually about 10 to 30 on a train, so figure