Western Railroad Discussion > A Great "Great Northern" week/weekend in the Spokane area

We'll start with BNSF SD9 #1730, built as Great Northern #598, one of two GN SD9's with Dynamic Brakes (the other being GN #599 in the process of being preserved in Skykomish, WA). The first photo shows it stored in BNSF's Seattle Interbay Yard on Oct. 27, 2019, along with two other SD9's and an SW1200. I was shocked they were still there, as I recall seeing them back in 2008. I took this shot while in town for a Commuter Rail Operating Group (CROG) convention that my employer, UTA Frontrunner, sent me to. During this convention I had the opportunity to meet some fine folks from the BNSF and Sounder Operations. While flying home and looking through my photos, I thought "maybe I should reach out to those guys to find out the status of these old units". I sent them an email that following week and they got me in touch with BNSF's local PR rep. Initial discussions were to try and save all 4 of these units to various museums. Unfortanetly, due to their current conditions, he only got approval for one....which is still better than none. From here I reached out to the Inland Northwest Rail Museum in Rearden, WA to see if they'd have an interest in this SD9, and I was happy to hear that they definetly would be! Discussions now included the President of the Museum. There was a few times that it wasn't looking too good for this donation to actually happen. But, fast forward to this past weekend and we see the second photo of  #1730 sitting in BNSF's Spokane Yard waiting to be moved th Cheney, WA to intercahnge to the Washington Eastern for delivery to its Retirement Home at the Inland Northwest Rail Museum :)

Stay tuned for the next part....   

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And now we'll move on down the road to Western Rail in Airway Heights, WA. During a visit back in July, I had an opportunity to stop by and meet the owner of Western Rail and check out their equipment. During this trip, I also met with the folks in Kalispell, MT about their plans of converting part of the former Great Northern line through town into a new trail system, and their desire to preserve and display a Great Northern locomotive. Over the past month I've been working with both these groups to try and preserve and display a true Great Northern locomotive. Well, last Monday the 17th, Klarr Locomotive Industries LLC (KLIX) finalized the purchase of former Central Montana GP9 #1809, built in 1954 as Great Northern #657. On Tuesday and Wednesday my Brother and I loaded up and took a roadtrip to Spokane. We stopped and bought some paint on the way in and started working on this unit Wednesday afternoon. The first photo shows how it looked prior to us starting work on it.

Because this unit was already wearing blue paint similar to Great Northern's Big Sky Blue, we decided to make some modifications to its current paint scheme, which was the purpose for this trip. The second and third photo shows some of the progress. 

Stay tuned for more info and more photos of the results...

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And now here are the results of our visit and 3 day work session. From here we are in the process of having some Great Northern sign boards made up to mount to the handrails, we will renumber it back to its original #657, and it will head out to Kalispell in the next month or so. A few things I'd like to note: This is a true Great Northern GP9 (#657), however, it never wore the BSB scheme. This is only a temporary scheme until the City of Kalispell raises enough funding to have it completely repainted into its original "Empire Builder" scheme in the next couple of years. We do realize that this is not the correct shade of BSB blue and also that the BSB blue scheme had a dark grey on the top portion of their units, this one is black.....but, as mentioned, this is only temporary and close enough. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the photos and the backstory of this project. I will try to provide updates as this project moves forward and when the unit gets scheduled for transport from Spokane to Kalispell, along the former Great Northern Mainline!   

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A little 1:1 scale kitbashing.

very nice
 

Awesome! I will probably end up handling both locomotives. I already moved the 1809 into position to be painted at Western Rail.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

I like it. I like it. 👍👍

Billy is smiling.

Good to see the 598 found a home. We had looked into getting it moved to Klamath Falls and placed in the OC&E yard with the Baldwin that's still there and I believe owned by Fred Kepner but looked after by the state. The problem was getting it into what's left of the OC&E yard as it's not a "live rail" i.e. connection to the outside world. Should be a good candidate for full operation if the opportunity arises in the future. When the 598/599 duo was laid up the  598 was the better of the two although somewhere along the way they took the dynamic brakes out but that's something that can be replaced. I spent a lot more time on the 599 but they were both legends in Klamath folklore. I've seen pictures of them out on the road though too when the GN wasn't running the OC&E so to me anywhere in the PNW is a good home!