Dry Coulee Weed Patrol

From the "Grant County Journal."

December 10, 1973

Passenger Train Service Arrives

From the "Grant County Journal."

June 14, 1973

Now You See It, Now You Don't

From the "Grant County Journal."

March 1, 1973

Cab Hop

Courtesy of Tom Carver.

October 1980.

"Rolling cab hop through Spokane's industrialized east end, the Coulee City Turn has departed its home base of Parkwater to head west. It's still harvest season in central Washington State, and the seven units will be making two pickups to fill out the train with empties for the elevators, pick up loads on the return trip the next day, or as necessary on the westward trip to clear elevator tracks for more empties."

 

CW Eleanor Turn-Again

Photo courtesy of Blair Kooistra.

Blair says:

"On a beautiful late Indian summer evening, September 16, 1981, a single GP9 is sufficient to forward a dozen empty 40' grain box cars down the Eleanor Spur, a downgraded Northern Pacific branchline which wandered for 18 miles south and east from a connection with Burlington Northern's 8th subdivision branch between Cheney and Coulee City in search of a handful of small-capacity grain elevators in eastern Washington state..

"Operated only during the wheat rush in the late summer and into fall, the westbound CW local would stop and pick up the necessary number of ordered boxcars from the siding at Major, 5 miles east of Davenport, and then, arriving at the junction, cut off the trailing locomotive and the boxcars and make a slow, slow trip spotting cars.

"The line dead-ended at a small elevator at Eleanor. On this evening, the train Mike Sawyer and I followed went as far as Gravelles, 11.1 miles south of Davenport. The elevator track had a capacity of but four cars, and several more than that were loaded and ready to go, shoved out fouling the main track, requiring several saw-by moves to spot the empties and pick up the loads.

"Mike and I left the local to its thing as the sun set. In retrospect, of course, it would have been nice to do some blue hour and night exposures of this little-photographed operation.

"The spur was abandoned at the end of April in 1983. Its light rail restricted equipment to 50 ton capacity boxcars for its one commodity, wheat, in an era where the 40' boxcar was obsolete. In the post Staggers regulatory environment, BN accelerated its program of selling off and abandoning marginal lines, and the Eleanor spur certainly fit this description. Farmers along the Eleanor spur protested of course, but other elevators existed along the CW branch at Davenport, of course, or Reardan (only 5 miles from the end of the spur at Eleanor), or even along the GN mainline a dozen or so miles away to the south.

"For awhile, there were rumors Washington Public Power would build a new coal-fired power plant adjacent to the line, saving it from oblivion, but this never happened.

"The elevators are still in place out there in the wheat fields, but it's been over 40 years since a train rocked and rolled down the old jointed rail to deliver boxcars to elevators."

1989 BN OCS At Trinidad

Photo by Dean Ferris.

On August 2, 1989 a BN officer special is stopped at Trinidad, WA where occupants of rear car Glacier View have hopped off to stretch their legs. I'm not sure why the stop was made here compared to the wonderfully scenic locations ahead alongside the Columbia River and through the Cascade Mountains, but I used a good half roll of film while they were sitting here!

August 1981 CW Local Chase

Courtesy of Tom Carver.

August 15, 1981

The local had started the day at Almira, where the crew had outlawed the night before. Here are pictures that Tom has shared of that trip.

The Central Washington Local drops empties at Hanson, WA, on its westbound trip to Coulee City; will pick up loads on the return.

In a location where one would not expect to find three F-units and a Geep, the CW local's crew is turning the power for the return to Spokane from Coulee City. 

 At Coulee City, making up their train.

 

After outlawing the night before at Almira, WA, the engineer has the hammer down on his F-Units and a Geep, just after leaving Coulee City on the return trip east to Spokane with the CW Local. The gray dust trail is volcanic ash from the Mt. St. Helens eruption the year before.

Back at Hanson.

 It is about to pass under U.S. Route 2 in the scrublands near Govan.

The eastbound Coulee City Turn did not stop for any pickups in Almira, WA, on this trip back to Spokane. 

At Mondovi.

The CW Local has left the open prairie and wheat fields of central Washington State behind and is entering the far eastern part of the state which gradually becomes more forested, as seen here between Creston and Davenport. August 15, 1981.

"The engineer and agent are having a friendly chat while the CW Local waits at Cheney, Wash., for clearance to enter the main line from the CW Branch and proceed to Spokane. Three F-Units and a Geep are the power on a pleasant August 15, 1981."

1989 Interbay Wreck Train

Photo by Dean Ferris.

The Interbay wreck train hustles its' way past Rock Island Dam towards Quincy, WA to clean up a major derailment on May 21, 1989.

CW Trainorders-3

 

CW Trainorders-2

 

CW Trainorders-1

 

BN 808 Near Almira

Guest post by Blair Kooistra.

Occasionally, the trap door will open and gravity pulls me into the big bin of slides hearkening back to the earliest days of railroading. . .at least my life of railroading.

It's the fall of 1980, and Burlington Northern is moving grain to market off the branchlines in Eastern Washington.  The network of light rail, minimal ballast, and small grain elevators has been steadily reduced through abandonment; certainly the opening of the Snake River for grain barge traffic hasn't helped the plight of the railroad.

But business still thrives during harvest season on the 108.8 mile former Northern Pacific branchline from Cheney to Coulee City--the railroad calls it the 8th Subdivision of the Spokane Division, but the railroaders colloquially call it the "CW Branch".

A small band of happy warriors with cameras have been chasing the local all day, hitting the road in the very small hours of the day on the hope of intercepting it somewhere on its westward journey to Coulee City. Eyes peeled in the dark, we visited each little grain elevator town, looking for the train--not at Coulee City--so we pressed east, finally finding it at Almira. Before too long, the crew arrived in a van provided by the motel in Coulee City which held the railroad's lodging and transportation contract.  Before dawn, they were on their way back west.

The attraction to us, moreso than the nature of branchline railroading, was the use of streamlined EMD F-unit power on this train. The F's had been bumped earlier in the year from the usual assignment at their Spokane mechanical base on the Marias Pass helpers, so they trickled down to branchline service, usually on the CW job as well as the "Highball" from Spokane to Pullman and Lewiston.

After spotting empty 40' boxcars at Coulee City and pulling the loads, they were back eastbound towards home. Starting with 15 loads, 16 more were grabbed at Hartline. . By the time the train rattled up Corbett Draw east of Almira, 31 cars were in tow, wearing a delightful mix of paint schemes, current and obsolete: BN, Burlington, Great Northern--curiously, no Northern Pacific cars with the giant NP initials and monad logo. 

Looking back at this from 46 years in the future, I realize now how perfect my timing was to get there when I did. The 40 foot boxcar as a vehicle for wheat haulage had just a few years left before total replacement by 100-ton covered hoppers. Those F-units--and geeps--on the head end--were living on borrowed time as well. Less than two years later, the F-units were stricken from the roster. Some of the geeps lingered on another 15 or so years. 

What a wonderful time in railroading this still was--streamlined diesels, boxcar grain with friction-bearing trucks, and a light-railed branchine with minimal ballast. The rail joints banged and clattered as the train passed by. And of course there was a caboose on the rear. An every day scene back then. How everyday? I didn't even photograph the caboose!

Fairchild Depot Views

Photo by Fred Simon. From my collection.

May 25, 1985

January 31, 1982

BN 6341 West Near Malaga

Courtesy of Tom Carver.

May 1981

"Having just crossed the Columbia River and now on the west bank, this westbound is approaching Wenatchee, WA, and a crew change."

BN 2214 At Fairchild

Photo by Fred Simon. From my collection.

April 15, 1987

1982 Wilson Creek View

Photo by Fred Simon. From my collection.

Train Fire In Ephrata

From the "Grant County Journal."

November 4, 1976

Meet At Adrian

My photo. 

June 29, 2026

A westbound Z train is doing track speed at Adrian, WA, while passing an empty oil train holding the siding. 

My photo location is part of the filled in Northern Pacific trestle which leapt over the GN main and Crab Creek here. This structure was removed in 1983. There was an actual interchange track here, starting at a point along the oil train marked by the water tank in the distance. There was another bridge over Crab Creek there, and a ramp going up to the NP at a point called Adco. Adco was a conjunction of the names “Adrian” and “Connell.” The line to here had been built between those points in 1910, connecting with the 1903 build NP branch down from Coulee City. 

At one time, this junction had been envisioned to allow the large quantities of wheat coming off the NP, which wanted to go to tidewater at Seattle, from having to be hauled all the way back to Spokane, and then to Seattle. This would save about 200 miles. 

During the mid 1930s, this interchange boomed with carloads of construction material for the abuilding Grand Coulee Dam. While much was handed over to the NP at Spokane, the cement plant along the GN at Grotto, on the west side of Stevens Pass, added it’s share to the other 5 places enlisted to provide product.

In the early days of the newly merged Burlington Northern, there had been a plan floated to build a unit train loader in this area. Unfortunately, the boom of Wyoming coal took the bulk of BN’s money and time, so this project never came to fruition. 

The interchange had a longer life than expected. While the line through to Coulee City was largely unused after 1950, the interchange and line south boomed due to the sugar beet processor built outside of Moses Lake. Nearby Quincy and Winchester, along the GN, became huge beet growing regions. Beets from there were shipped by rail along the GN to Adrian, where they were handed off to the NP for furtherance south to the plant. This continued until the plant was closed in 1979. 

Both bridges were removed in 1983 after BN got permission to abandon the line south. 

Trains And Snakes

Photo courtesy of James Belmont.

June 30, 1995

Burlington Northern train No. 639 approaches 2,382 ft, Tunnel No. 11, between Quincy and Trinidad, Washington the afternoon of June 30, 1995. I remember well this particular afternoon of photography along the Great Northern involved more snake sightings than trains.

BN Train At Quincy

Photos by Brian Elchlepp. 

June 1987