Friday, February 27, 2026

BN Train Near Deep Creek

Image courtesy of Blair Kooistra. 

Blair says:

"I LOVE Fridays. It means I get to share photos of F-UNITS with y'all!!!

This one sums Burlington Northern's Eastern Washington branchlines up in a single frame. . . eastbound CW Branch local drops down the Deep Creek grade at the Highway 2 overpass on August 15, 1981. Three former Northern Pacific F9's and a GP7 lead a train of woodchips and wheat--mostly wheat--towards a mainline connection at Cheney.

It's a scene that, apart from the operating railroad and the locomotives, hasn't changed much at all in the past 42 years. Wheat is still the primary commodity, and--for now, anyway--Jaguar Transport operates the line owned by the State of Washington under the name Washington Eastern.