1979 BN Station Revenues-Portland Division

 

F-Units at Davenport, WA

Courtesy of Tom Carver.

August 16, 1981

"The first time I encountered the Central Washington local was this same eastward train about 10 miles west of here, while driving the return leg of my delivery route out of Seattle. Every second day out I would return from either Coeur d'Alene or Spokane via U.S. Route 2, which followed the tracks, to my last delivery in Wenatchee. This was the first train I saw on the line and I was surprised that they were using F-Units. It was four-axle-only territory, which made sense, and the F's were out of the Parkwater (Spokane) based motive power pool, which also supplied these same units for the Marias Pass helpers. I turned around and followed it back here to Davenport, where he switched. Amazing how much infrastructure and equipment still remained in the 1980's."

BN 604 Approaching Crater

Courtesy of Blair Kooistra.

Blair says:

"Here's the big view of the former Great Northern's climb out of the side canyon above Trinidad siding, east of Wenatchee, as train #604, using an assigned Wenatchee-Spokane-Wenatchee one-day turn crew, emerges from Tunnel 11 and steps out onto the narrow ledge above the "crater" below the west end of Quincy siding on September 17, 1991.

"The railroad is on a 0.8% gradient here, which it uses to climb away from the Columbia River to reach to Columbia Plateau at Quincy. Back behind the tunnel is the famous Trinidad Horseshoe curve.

#604 was the "Red Dog Ore" train hauling zinc concentrate (If I remember correctly) mined in Alaska and transported to Everett bound for the big Teck Resources smelter at Trail, British Columbia. Ore was hauled in rebuilt woodchip cars with reinforced floors, backhauling the chip load from the Everett area. The crew was an assigned turn, Wenatchee to Spokane and timed to catch hotshot train #3 back to Wenatchee in 12 hours. This made #604 one of the hottest eastbounds on the Columbia River subdivision."

 

F Units!

Courtesy of Blair Kooistra.

Blair says:
"From August 15, 1981, we're ankle deep in freshly turned soil and volcanic ash on a hillside between Wilbur and Creston, Washington, as the eastbound CW Local grinds past with a 35-car grain train pulled by a trio of F9's and a GP9, all former Northern Pacific. Fitting, as this branch from Cheney to Coulee City, Washington, is former Northern Pacific as well.

"This day, they train is all "modern" covered hoppers, all though many of them still wear the paint of predecessor railroads. A few miles ahead, the local will stop to pick up eight loaded woodchip cars, about the only non-grain business regularly handled on the line.

"This was the last harvest for the old Covered Wagons--by the end of the year, the last of BN's F-units working out of Spokane would go into storage, joining their sisters on the west side of the mountain which had ceased their labors only two weeks before."

BN Local Power At Wenatchee

Photo courtesy of Brian Ambrose.

July 7, 1979

BN Train 21 At Trinidad

Photo courtesy of Dean Ferris.

July 1989

Palouse River & Coulee City Railroad, Inc.—Acquisition Exemption— Burlington Northern Railroad Company

 

BN 8075 At Adrian

Courtesy of Blair Kooistra. 

Blair says:

"A trip to the BN east of Wenatchee on November 7, 1981--a Saturday afternoon in the late fall, and four of us--I know Brian Ambrose was along, perhaps Tom Carver and Robert Getchall as well?--drove out in the early morning from Seattle to catch the Coulee City Local. It was rumored to still be operating with F-units, the last few still running on the BN in the Northwest after those assigned to Vancouver, Seattle and Auburn were all parked by late July.

"Intelligence was correct: four F9A's were teamed with a "GP10" rebuild, and we caught up with them switching in Coulee City. Disappointingly, the geep was on the point, and no matter how much pleading, grovelling, and begging we did, the crew wasn't about to run the power around the wye to appease us. Bummer. It was the last time I saw BN F's in service. We took a couple shots of it leaving Coulee City headed into thickening cloud cover, and decided to leave it at that.

"We decided to head south a half hour to the former GN mainline west of Stratford--certainly we'd get some traffic and we did, scoring a few trains in nicely muted afternoon light.

"Here's one of the westbound: nothing fancy, just a trio of SD40-2s from the last batch BN acquired, I believe, less than a year old. They're going over the east switch at Adrian, which at one time was a junction and interchange point where the former Northern Pacific between Coulee City and Wheeler crossed over the GN.

"This was about as vanilla a set of locomotives as you could find on the BN at the time, but I'm glad I bothered making the shot. And to think we gave up a GP9/F9A/F9A/F9A/F9A set on a local for THIS!!!"

And for reference, the shot they got on the CW:

Sunrise With The CW Local

Photo courtesy of Blair Kooistra. 

August 15 1981

Blair says:

"Sunrise with the CW Local. Climbing the hill into Hanson Washington, having left Almira a little before with a fresh relief crew on out of Spokane.

"No place can one feel so alive than standing with your feet in the soil amid wheat fields the wind gently blowing, the sun making its first efforts to warm the day's air. It'll be a hot one by afternoon."

BN 6835 At Trinidad

Photos courtesy of Ken Albrecht. 

May 22, 1975

BN 724 CW Local

Courtesy of Tom Carver.

September 1980

"The CW (Central Washington) local, aka the Coulee City Turn, is shown here westbound between the elevators at Hite, in the background, and Reardan, WA. This line, from Cheney to Coulee City, was more formally known as BN's 8th Subdivision Branch Line of the Spokane Division. Some will say that six F-units and a Geep is too much power for their liking. Granted, but the sound was incredible! After the Pacific Division F's were retired, these were among BN's last F-units to continue operating, all based out of Parkwater in Spokane. These same F's were also dispatched east to Marias Pass for helper service."

1978 Alcoa Local View

Photo courtesy of Brian Ambrose.

BN 1761 East with ex-GN GP9's 1761/1764 east of Malaga, WA 7-8-78.

BN Train At Crater

Courtesy of Blair Kooistra.

Blair says:

"Until Steven J. Brown and I stumbled around on the edge of a cliff in an apple orchard the week before and "discovered" the view across the "crater" above the Trinidad horseshoe curve, I never knew scene existed.! So I was back the following week to shoot this Advanced #12 with the wide angle across the crater as it climbs out of tunnel #11, onto the ledge, and up to the west end of Quincy siding. October 4 (we used to call that Broderick Crawford day, for us old timers), 1991."

BN 808 Near Cement

Guest post by Blair Kooistra. 

My pal Tom Carver--the guy who just authored that fantastic book on the Alco Century series of locomotives that just hit the market--disrupted my life one evening when I visited his home in the Interbay neighborhood of Seattle and laid it on me.

Tom was working as a short-haul truck driver, making a couple of trips a week between Seattle and Spokane. And Tom, being a railfan, couldn't help but keep his eyes out trackside when he was on the road.

His big news one day in the late summer of 1980: Burlington Northern was using F-units--multiple F-units in a big power set--on the Coulee City branch west from Spokane. BN had always assigned F7s and F9's out of Yardley in Spokane, largely assigned to helper service on Marias Pass to the east. But with F45s recently assigned to those duties, they became more popular to use on a few of the long-distance local jobs from there: Up to Kettle Falls and over to Republic on the Canadian Border, south on the P&L down to Moscow, Pullman and Lewiston, and west across the wheatfields to Coulee City.

And Tom had photos to prove it!

Well, that completely messed with my mind--BN's use of F-units in the Seattle area were starting to wind down, and F-units on branchlines hauling boxcars of wheat. . . let's go!

I made at least a half-dozen trips over the mountain to chase those damned F-units, almost down to their final days when the last one went into storage in early 1982. It was always with a variety of fellow photographers, and it always was a great time.

Here's one good memory, from my third trip on August 15, 1981. Engineer Jerry Kohliber leans out the cab window of F9 #808 and gives us a big smile as he takes a couple more notches on the throttle of three F9's and a GP7 not far east of Coulee City near the US 2 grade crossing at Cement Siding.

In four decades of retrenchment of railroads in Eastern Washington, amazing the Coulee City branch still survives--eventually bought by the state and operated even today under a contract operator.

No F units, though. But still a good time.

Annual Trek

From the "Grant County Journal."

May 18, 1970

1978 Wenatchee Depot View

Photo by Greg Weirich.

The Wenatchee depot on 9-16-78. No Amshack at this date.

1990 Lamona Sideswipe Collision

From "Northwest Railfan."

July 1990

Rotary Snowplow View At Rocklyn

Photo by Dean Ferris.

Dean says:

"From my rotary chase of BN's CW Branch (now the Washington Eastern) at Rocklyn, WA on January 11, 1993."

BN Train At Rock Island

Photo courtesy of Dean Ferris.

Dean says:

"On August 2, 1989 a westbound intermodal passes the 1944 Whitcomb which switched the Rock Island, WA silicon plant.

Train Ride For Cubs During Transportation Month

From the Coulee City "News & Standard."

January 31, 1974