Western Railroad Discussion > Taking the Scenic Route

Even when I lived in western Washington, I didn't make it up to Stevens Pass and BNSF's Scenic Sub very often. Fighting traffic through Tacoma and Seattle was a barrier that I didn't like to cross. It was just so much easier to head south to the Columbia Gorge. Stevens Pass also had the tree tunnel issues that limited access and photo spots. My most successful visit to Stevens Pass happened shortly after moving to western Washington, and that trip was on August 18th, 2006. Traffic was very heavy as the economy was doing very well at that point, but would soon falter with the housing bubble burst followed by the Great Recession a couple years later. Photos shown in order taken. Captions are on the photo frames.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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At that time, the bottleneck on that route was the Cascade Tunnel and the time it took to clear the nearly 8 mile long bore of smoke. If two heavy eastbounds were running closely together, the second train was guaranteed to have a long wait somewhere west of the tunnel. They were still running the "Heavy Gal" (H-EVEGAL), the lumber heavy mixed freight that took Canadian lumber to the midwest. You also saw a number of stack trains eastbound out of the ports. Now those stack trains take the long way around through the Columbia River Gorge, as does the Canadian lumber traffic. These days the tunnel mostly sees empty grain, coal and oil trains returning from the west coast.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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The east slope of the Cascades has more open areas being in the rain shadow of the mountains. It also keeps the clouds at bay as they tend to back up against the mountains. So you often find yourself on the east side for a variety of reasons.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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As often seemed to be the case, the really good consists didn't show up until the sun fell down behind the mountains. BNSF was leasing a lot of locomotives at the time in addition to keeping it's hordes of SD40-2's going. That would soon come to a end with the 2008 recession.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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Wonderful post, Ted.  Great locomotive variety that was done in by the 2008 recession.  Thanks for your descriptive captions.

Outstanding bunch.
JB

Great series, Ted!

texchief1

Great set, thanks for sharing!

An excellent and enjoyable series Ted!

Larry

Great assortment! All of these locations are great, but its hard to beat a morning eastbound at Grotto. The slot near Merritt is new to me and seems worth the visit this summer. Thanks for sharing. 

SCUfoamer Wrote:
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The slot near Merritt is new to me and seems worth the visit this summer.

There are a couple of angles that work at "The Slot".  This was an eastbound Z-train on July 9, 2013.  I haven't been back in there lately, but as I recall, you'll want to be in a vehicle with some ground clearance.  Probably won't need 4WD unless it's muddy or snowing.  Take White Pine Road/Forest Service Road 6950 off of US 2 about 1.2 miles west of where you would have turned for "downtown" Merritt.

mike woodruff
north platte ne

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swaool Wrote:
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> There are a couple of angles that work at "The
> Slot".  This was an eastbound Z-train on July 9,
> 2013.....

Mike, minor correction. That train was westbound. However the train I caught at that exact spot a decade before was indeeding moving eastbound, after stalling out and having to back down to Merritt to setout some tonnage.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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4th shot is particulary nice but then, so are all of them.  Thanks for posting them.

Very nice...!!  Those were the days.....