Great Northern Plans

From the Spokane "Chronicle."

December 1, 1891

President Of The Spokane & Seattle Visits The Region

From the "Spokesman Review."

January 15, 1897

Great Northern Arranging To Reach Out Into The Country

From the "Post Intelligencer."

October 5, 1892

Bridging The Gorge

From the "Post Intelligencer."

April 10, 1893

The Great Northern Route Across The Big Bend

From the Spokane "Review."

December 8, 1891

Coulee City-A Promising Young Town Attracting Much Attention

From the Spokane Falls "Review."

June 1, 1890

In The Big Bend Country

From the Spokane "Chronicle."

June 23, 1891

Mansfield Wheat Depends On Rail

From the Wenatchee "World."

Courtesy of Darrin Nelson.

October 18, 1981

1975 Local Power At Wenatchee

Photo courtesy of Sid Vaught.

August 14, 1975

Sid says:

"It's quiet as the grave in the yard on this weekend as branch line power rests for the weekend. Great paint scheme."

"Coles Crossing"

Guest post by Frederick Manfred Simon.

 December 23, 2017

02:56 crew change at Cole’s Crossing (homestead in the background) somewhere along US 2 between night and a barely dozen-degree morning. In the 45 cab, Eastern Washington Gateway Engineer “Jay” Pospisil (aka Popsicle) and Conductor Scott Rohrig have just been briefed by and relieved the previous crew to continue the train’s trek west on the venerable “CW.” Some 2100 feet into the icy, countlessly pinholed-black, flashing-red Fred dutifully comms control-stand-perched Mary he’s good-to-go and Jay releases the binders throttle in opposite hand opens it to give his horses the gitty up. Just above the headlight I spot Orion’s belt and I pause to consider how much tonnage this inimitable ’69 LaGrange mare has hauled about murica while she proudly wore Espee’s iconic scarlet and grey dress, and how many tons she helped shove black and blue over Mullan Pass while stabled, fed and ploughing for Montana Rail Link? Here on the EWG, she still earns her keep: daily, for the foreseeable future. Rolling, and that unmistakable squeaking of flexing flexicoil trucks and EMD turbo whine fade and vanish into the arctic darkness, my timeless image securely frozen in time. 

Adrian Will Make A Fine Little Town

From the Wenatchee "World."

May 25, 1909

The Big Bend Country As It Is And As It Will Be

From the "Spokesman Review."

May 3, 1889

Progress Of The Great Northern Survey In The Big Bend Region

From the Spokane "Chronicle."

February 2, 1891

May Change The Time Cards

From the Spokane "Chronicle."

July 25, 1901

BN 1796 At Wenatchee

Photo courtesy of Bill Edgar.

June 1974

Bill says:

"BN 1796, former GN 723, a late phase GP9 built in October 1957, was caught resting at Wenatchee, WA, part of a helper set, in early June 1974. This unit seemed to hang around northwest Washington, often in helper service. By 1977 GN's simplifed scheme had been replaced by BN green."

BN F Units At Coulee City

Courtesy of Blair Kooistra.

Blair says:
"There's a rumor afloat that BNSF is buying/has bought an A-B pair of F-units recently jettisoned by Norfolk Southern, used to power their executive train. Whether this is true or not, the hand-wringing among fans has begun: what color will they be painted? Will they keep those funny ditch lights? what about the horn?

"Having recalled Burlington Northern's foray into a similar small fleet of Covered Wagons in the 1990s (remember BN-1 and -2?), it's deja vu all over again. BN rebuilt a pair of old freight locomotives and painted them in the "Grinstein Green" and cream livery, which was almost universally disliked by the railfan community. 

"Then they got rid of them. Frankly, i'd be happy with F-units on BNSF's officer trains over the alternative, no matter the paint scheme.

"But I'd still prefer Cascade Green--which brings me to this photo, of the last active BN (non BN-1 or -2, that is) F-units I photographed. November 7, 1981, with four F9As leaving Coulee City, WA back to Spokane behind a GP9. As I recalled, we pooled our loose cash to offer the crew as a bribe to turn the power to have an F-unit lead, but they weren't too interested in our offer!"

“Stonehenge”

Guest post by Frederick Manfred Simon.

May 20, 2017

Like a postmodern American Stonehenge – silent – proud – pillars – rising as if a portal into another world crumbling yet will not bend to time though its intended task of lifting swifting elegant trans-con passenger trains and heavy-long freights across and over the Lind Coulee that beaks westward into the expansive Kansas Prairie to what must have seemed as terra incognito: the American West some hundred years prior present. Herculean was the 1905 Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad board blessed 2,300-mile Pacific expansion completed in Olympian speed: just three short years at the cost of nearly two billion today-dollars labeled in retrospect as an “egregious” adventure by certain modern railroad scholars. Maybe. Certainly, the Milwaukee’s future, at the time, was burning as brightly as the setting sun over the Pacific itself. A vision forged into a reality shortlived unbeknownst its heads. Fortuna was not favorable to the bold Road. Unforeseeable events; the erratic, unpredictable evolution of the industry; draconian regulations; notwithstanding critical lapses in sound management contributed to its slow, steady, decline, and untimely death. And still, the mystery of its mystique affects and attracts us like Neolithic Druids paying homage…wondering what was and what might have been.

Over The GN Road

From the Spokane "Review."

December 4, 1892

About The City-Watch Coulee Grow

From the Spokane Falls "Review."

November 9, 1890

Cascade Pass And Lake Chelan

From the "Post Intelligencer"

June 4, 1892

At The Columbia

From the "Post Intelligencer."

October 13, 1892

Went Down With A Crash

From the Spokane "Review."

September 28, 1892

Stone & Webster Cut Pay

From the "Spokesman Review."

April 14, 1932

Columbia Power Program Ready

From the Spokane "Chronicle."

January 9, 1930

Thousand Men Hard At Work On Columbia River Dam Site

From the Spokane "Chronicle."

August 25, 1930

Boom Town Springs To Life Near Rock Island Dam Site

From the Spokane "Chronicle."

March 22, 1930

Where $30,000,000 Rock Island Dam Goes In

From the Spokane "Chronicle."

March 22, 1930