Western Railroad Discussion > Covering Some Ground

Made a quick weekend trip up to Spokane, WA and back to Ontario, OR doing some railfanning along the way. Here some of the results of that trip.

1. Lengthy eastbound 4x1 stack train coming out of the horseshoe curve and out the bottom end of the double track at Pritchard Creek, OR. The addition of Schneider National, STO Logistics and Swift containers is breaking up the solid green blocks of EMP and Hub Group Containers that used to dominate these trains.

2. UP switch crew heads back to the office to tie up at the Wallula, WA yard office while a WATCO switcher sits cold. A WATCO GP30 just took a cut of cars up into the mill so I didn't get a photo of it.

3. UP's METHK with CP run-through power comes through the ex-Spokane International yard in Spokane, WA.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/23 01:03 by funnelfan.

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I was in a time crunch Saturday, so didn't do much railfanning on that day, but spent most of Sunday trackside.

4. METHK passing SI ballast hoppers in the SI Yard....very fitting.

5. Westbound manifest on BNSF's Lakeside Sub going through the reverse curves at Mesa, WA. The bridge of the old Basin City branch is at far left, part of a graded never finished branch that was supposed to have been built all the way to Mattawa, WA in the late 1960's. Rail only extended to a point past Basin City before the project was curtailed.

6. BNSF's Low Line Local departing Pasco with a SD60M and a SD75M.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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7. It took a long time for the Low Line to catch up to me at Quarry Pond between Villard Jct and Wallula on UP's Yakima Sub. The local had to wait for the Snake River lift span to be dropped into place, and then switched a interchange track at Villard Jct.

8. A better look at the power on the Low Line, ex-BN and ex-ATSF.

9 I took a back road into Oregon that passed through Helix, OR, a station on the one time George Hunt's Oregon-Washington Territory RR. Later sold to NP, the Helix depot survives and was recently restored.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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10-12 Trio of images showing the head end of the lengthy 3x1x2 MOGPD cresting the Blue Mtns at Kamela, OR.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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13. Walking into a spot to catch the IG4SE I spooked a buck. The deer was surprisingly tame.He only went a short distance then stared at me from 40' away. I asked him if I had scared him, but he offered no response. Since he was right next to the track, I figured he would take off when the train got close. But no, he seemed to be more curious about what I was doing than anything else and stayed put while the train passed. After I got my photo of the train I waved at him and said adios as I walked back to my car.

14. IG4SE crossing Five Points Creek as it starts up the steep climb out of Hilgard. At one time a logging railroad left the UP on the far side of the bridge and ran up Five Points Creek, one of at least three logging railroads that left the ORN/OWRN/UP mainline near Hilgard.

15. The steep grades and slow speeds makes it easy to beat the train to the old highway overpass below Motanic. UP has laid out a slew of new concrete ties to replace the well worn ones on the mainline. There is a discarded old concrete tie at Motanic that shows how the bottom half of the tie is gone, having been worn away from years of heavy use.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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17 & 18. IG4SE heading upgrade to Motanic.

19. Classic brick warehouse in La Grande, OR

 

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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Great stuff, thanks for sharing!

Great series of photos.  I am studying the locations for a future trip.

Ted Ferkenhoff
Flagstaff, AZ

You certainly made good use of your Sunday.  Great photos especially liked the Blue Mountains, I miss them, and the inquisitive deer.   Thank you.
Blaine
American Fork

Great post, Ted!

texchief1

Great train photos, wonderful scenry.  Thanks.  Gerry

Excellent series Ted. Lots of interesting shots of so many areas covered in one day. Also liked the deer shot!

Larry

Great shots! Kinda weird seeing that much power on G4SE. When it comes by the Chehalis railcam it is usually a 1x1x0 or 1x2x0 setup. Sometimes 2 motors on the front. Do they reblock the train in Hinkle and remove some power? 

Nice photos Ted!
•Thank you for the history of the rail line to Basin City. I've wondered about that myself (the unused RXR bridge) at Mesa.
•Interesting green/orange color combo of the UP stacks
•Great photo of the former SI yard with some SI ballast cars!
- Andy

Great set Ted. It's probably been mentioned here before, but you must really love trains to spend your days off around them after spending your days on around them. (I know you're not the only current or former railroad employee that feels this way!)

funnelfan Wrote:
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> 1. Lengthy eastbound 4x1 stack train coming out of
> the horseshoe curve and out the bottom end of the
> double track at Pritchard Creek, OR.

ISEG2 train?

Interesting seeing that big of an MOGPD with DPU power in the middle and the rear; this sort of thing used to be unusual up in the Blue Mtns except for the heavy loaded unit trains.  I wonder if going "even bigger" on the train sizes is a new Vena product, even on the 2.2% grades?  There must be many train make up issues with a train like that; DP power in two places and I imagine that train had a large number of empty cars and empty centerbeams.  Nothing like pushing the law of physics!

Good stuff, Ted, thanks for posting.  A minor nitpick.  That SD75M is not ex-ATSF.  BNSF got rid of all the ex-Santa Fe's and kept all but a couple of the ones BNSF got after the merger.  Still, good to see it working with the SD60M.  

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

Nice shots!!