Passenger Trains > Sunday drive to see a late Empire Builder

Last Sunday, I drove out to Maryhill, Washington to photograph the westbound Empire Builder's Portland section. It was over six hours late. I caught it going by the vineyard that's a couple of miles west of Maryhill siding.

On the way back to town, Amtrak 27 was delayed by a meet with an eastbound vehicle train at Cooks siding, west of Bingen. Because of the delay, I was able to capture the train coming and going near the west end of Melonas siding at North Bonneville.

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I didn't know there was a Melonas siding there.  It's no doubt named or renamed for Gus Melonas, BNSF's longtime Northwest PR director and later corporate PR director who retired recently.  As I remember, his dad was in maintenance of way on the old SP&S through there.  Nice to see Gus get the honor.

Very nice!

Three excellent locations.

Bob

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/23 04:14 by robj.

Nice catch! Great photos!

This was one of the consists without the Superliner Sightseer Lounge it seems!!! 

Could be a snack coach filling in.  Can't see the car number
 

Great photos, thanks for sharing.
The Melonas family goes wide and deep with the SP&S, BN, and BNSF.
Gus was the PR guy but a brother was (is?) a track welder and an ancestor was part of the team that drove the golden spike to complete the SP&S.
The family was also into dairy farming and cheese making.
If you visit the cemetery just east of Stevenson, alongside the tracks, you will find several Melonas tombstones.
The bridge No. 27 is crossing is one of the newest on the line.   The BNSF has been replacing the original steel brides at the rate of about one per year.
At present the bridge just west of Stevenson is in the early stages of construction.

NPRocky Wrote:
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> I didn't know there was a Melonas siding there. 
> It's no doubt named or renamed for Gus Melonas,
> BNSF's longtime Northwest PR director and later
> corporate PR director who retired recently.  As I
> remember, his dad was in maintenance of way on the
> old SP&S through there.  Nice to see Gus get the
> honor.

His dad was Roadmaster there, and an SP&S/BN legend. I worked with Gus while he was track inspector while going to journalism school. Gus was a very unurual Railroader in a communications department position.

TAW

Nice chase Greg.  Was he on time