Western Railroad Discussion > Maryhill Washington; then and now

Photo #1
An eastbound BN freight behind a GP35, F9A, GP9 road engine, passes under Highway 97 in July, 1978.
Photo #2
Eastbound BNSF this time, passing through a very different looking Maryhill on October 14, 2009.

Many changes have occurred in between the dates of these two photos. Most obvious would be the orchards and development to the area. Not so obvious is the result of the recent work to the deck of the bridge across the Columbia River. The railroad itself has gone through quite a change itself. Barely seven years old at the time, the Burlington Northern was made up largely of the vestiges of it's four merged entities. Although most of the motive power has been painted Cascade green and black, much of the rolling stock still bore the history of it's initial components of Northern Pacific, Great Northern, Spokane, Portland & Seattle and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy. The locomotive fleet also bore a similar resemblance, with Alcos, F's and early GP's proliferating the mainline freight pool. There was constant variety compared to the railroad across the river running everything behind SD40-2's and DDA40X's.
Moving forward 32 years, My most recent trip yielded nothing but -9's and SD70's and their variants, even on the garbage trains. The only variety was the occasional red and silver. The freight car fleet has also changed considerably. The pre-BN fleet is long gone, rendered obsolete as much by it's capacity as it's age. Most railcars today load to 80-100 tons or more. I can't recall the last 40' box car observed in revenue service.
Even the camera gear has changed. The first photo was shot with a Nikon F on Kadachrome 64, while the second was recorded digitally with a Nikon D60 on an 8 gig memory card.

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