"Six Motor Sunday" On The CBRW

Photo by Blair Kooistra.

Blair says:

"Six Motor Sunday. . . .

"There are few, if any places in North America where one can experience the roar of this many first-generation EMD locomotives working together anymore.

"On September 28, 2020, five SD9s and a single GP9 team up to move more than 90 cars northbound on the Columbia Basin Railroad, seen at 12 Road SE a couple of miles south of their destination of Warden, Washington, on the former Northern Pacific branch out of Connell. That's the 'skyscrapers' of the ag complex of Bruce, five miles in the distance.

"I really lucked out this Monday catching a train this big interchanged off the BNSF, requiring the power of all six locomotives; normally, three SD9s are used on this train, and I've never seen photographs of such an amalgamation being operated since.

"Columbia Basin Railway was created with its sister railroad Washington Central in the mid-1980s when Burlington Northern was in a down-sizing craze across the sysem. Businessman Nick Temple saw and opportunity and leased or purchased the former NP mainline and its branches from Ellensburg to Pasco as well as the "Connell Northern" branches north into the Columbia Basin from Connell to Moses Lake, Othello, and the Wheeler vicinity.

"Today, these railroads operate the largest fleet of surviving EMD SD9 locomotives, of which over 500 were built in survived in large numbers into the 1990s on Burlington Northern, Duluth Missabe & Iron Range, and Southern Pacific. CBR's fleet largely came from these three railroads, through Montana Rail Line, which employed several as well, rebuilding them at their Livingston shops.

"More than 4 1/2 years after my visit, the fleet is still going strong! The most heavily-rebuilt of the former MRL units, the #652--called an SD19-1 by the MRL--leads the way."