Guest post by Blair Kooistra.
My first trip--accompanied by Brian Ambrose--to the wonderful terrain east of Wenatchee on the former Great Northern, on July 8, 1978. We got into the crew change point at Wenatchee about noon and then went east towards the crossing of the Columbia River about a dozen miles out of town at the siding of Malaga--a great place to spend the afternoon with the curves and river and basalt cliff backdrops.
Here comes a westbound manifest train out of Malaga. Apart from a single high-wide Boeing load on the head end and a few woodchip loads it was mostly empty bulkhead flatcars and double-door boxcars all bound for reloading with lumber on the west side of the Cascades.
Can't complain about the power up front: The second F45 on the roster--former Great Northern--leads a pair of SD45s. We certainly could have chased this train back home over the pass, but there were more trains coming, and who'd want to pass up on that?
This day trip led to several trips that month to Stevens pass and a trip two weeks later with Michael Douglas Sawyer--who'd I met the day before--which resulted in one of those "tales from the road" as teenagers you'll remember for the rest of your life. . .and just make a new friendship that much stronger.
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