Western Railroad Discussion > Railfanning the Goat Trail

This afternoon around 4pm I noticed three back to back train trains heading out the Columbia River Sub from Spokane on ATCS. That was plenty of incentive to beat feet west out to the former GN mainline across the rocky coulees and sagebrush covered landscape of eastern Washington. The first westbound had too much of a lead to catch it, but back to back eastbounds delayed the next two westbound trains to allow me to get into position for photos, even enough time to do a little exploring. As I got to Edwall the Z-SSECHC was cutting through town heading for a meet with the vehicle train at Espanola and the H-SPOEVE at Lyons. I saw on ATCS that another eastbound was lined out of Bluestem to Edwall. I scouted out a high spot looking over the Crab Creek Coulee near Canby, WA and found a good spot looking down in the valley by hiking up a hill. I then went to a spot in the Bluestem Creek Coulee I've been too before, but it's a little bit of overland hiking. Thankfully the rattlesnakes don't seem to be out yet. I was surprised to see a pair of NS units as power on a Vehicle train. I ended up chasing it down to Lamona for another photo. I came back to Harrington for a photo of the H-SPOEVE which was very long for a train that is usually on the short side of things.

1. Eastbound Stack train crossing the Crab Creek Coulee on a large fill at Canby, WA on BNSF's Columbia River Sub. There is a stub fill at the left end of the large fill that was the old approach to a massive wood trestle that was part of GN's original crossing of this coulee.

2. Westbound Vehicle Train climbing the wall of Bluestem Creek Coulee near Bluestem, WA.

3. Westbound Vehicle Train at Lamona, WA.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/21 01:40 by funnelfan.

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4. A super long H-SPOEVE on the approach to Harrington, WA

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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Great shots, you did very well.

Tom

Very nice.

Ted and all-
Did they ever cut in the CTC on the two main tracks in the Bluestem-Harrington area for bi-directional running? It's been a few years since I've been that way and it seemed like they put up the signals and roadway speed signs and then left them covered for quite a while. 

Thanks for the look.
Dave in MT

Fantastic series!

monaddave Wrote:
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> Ted and all-
> Did they ever cut in the CTC on the two main
> tracks in the Bluestem-Harrington area for
> bi-directional running? It's been a few years
> since I've been that way and it seemed like they
> put up the signals and roadway speed signs and
> then left them covered for quite a while. 
>
> Thanks for the look.
> Dave in MT

it was cut in a while ago, maybe 8 years ago or so? They also added a Control Point just east of Mohler. Oddly they didn’t add a crossover just absolute blocks in both directions.

A very NICE and interesting look at the old GN route!

Larry

Speaking of that double track segment, I often wondered why BNSF has kept it in operation given the fairly low to moderate traffic levels on that line.
Then on the other side, it sounds silly to tear out the many miles of it.

All nice but shot #2 really does it for me.

Nice pics!!