Golden Glow At Cement

My photo.

February 26, 2020

Dust in the air gave the scene this lovely golden look, as 3 SD40-2s of the Washington Eastern pull loaded grain cars east past the elevator at Cement, between Coulee City and Hartline, WA. There was no processing of this photo after the image was taken.

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.

CW Local Near Cement

Photo courtesy of Blair Kooistra. 

Blair says:

"With five cars and a caboose in tow, the seven first-generation EMD locomotives leading the eastbound CW Local don't hardly even need a notch of throttle to roll into the morning sun on their return trip from Coulee City to the former NP mainline at Cheney on a crisp fall morning, September 27, 1980, seen a few miles west of Hartline, Washington just east of the US highway 2 grade crossing.

"The locomotive leading this mix of GP7 and 9's and a single F9B is a bit of a loner among the F-units BN has assigned to the western end of the system--a former Spokane, Portland & Seattle F3A, #712. Used mostly in passenger service during its SP&S career after delivery in November 1949--one of the last F3's built by EMD as SP&S 802--the unit was numbered into BN's passenger F-unit series as the #9752 and continued in passenger service until Amtrak's creation in 1971. All six of the former SP&S F-units were withdrawn from passenger service shortly afterwards and converted to unpowered power cars for BN's rotary snowplows in July 1972, numbered into the 97255X maintenance of way number series and painted mineral red. All were placed back in freight service by spring of 1974, renumbered to the 9750-series until renumbered one final time into the 700 series worn by the F3s and F7s, and most repainted green at the time. It was the only former SP&S F-unit to return to the Pacific Northwest, though not often used on home rails assigned to Spokane's Parkwater locomotive facility.

"I was living in Seattle at the time, and fellow railfan Tom Carver returned from a trip driving a truck back from Spokane one evening with the too-good-to-believe news that F-units were working the Coulee City branch! We had F-units a plenty in our backyard, but Tom's photos of wheatfields, 40-foot boxcars, grain elevators were that much better with F-units in his photos, and plans were immediately made to head east before such an opportunity slipped away. Calls were made to a contact within BN's regional public relations department, confirmation that an F-unit would indeed lead the Coulee City train on the day in question, and Mike Sawyer and I were off on the first of what would be several trips to see F-units on the branch. Ten years later, I would be living in Spokane, and while the F-units had been gone for a decade, the locomotives and train operations would still demand attention--as it does even today 43 years later!"

CW Local At Cement

Photo courtesy of Blair Kooistra.

October 11, 1980

Blair says:
"One more to break your hearts: CW Local tops the hill out of Coulee City, Washington,and near the Cement siding on October 11, 1980, on its way back to Cheney and Spokane.

"Sure, that is a pretty kick-ass set of locomotives up front--five F's, a couple of geeps, with an assortment of models and former owners--but what strikes me now from that day is the solid string of 40-foot boxcars still soldiering on in grain servce.

"Grain boxes held on until the abandonment of the Eleanor spur south of Davenport on the CW branch--that must've been 83-84--but even on this date,heavy covered hoppers were being used into Coulee City. Only the car forwarder likely knows "why" it was nothing but old boxcars being used on this date.

"Eleven of the 15 boxcars on this train wear Burlington Northern paint, and a close inspection would reveal nearly all of these are former Northern Pacific boxcars that enjoyed longevity due to NP's rebuilding of the cars in the 1960s. The majority of the cars that didn't get repainted were former GN or CB&Q cars, which didn't receive life-extension work, as I understood it. You'll find one Burlington car in the train, and three GN's: one in jade green, one ancient relic in the 1940's small-road name livery, and one really rusted and crapped out box that demonstrates how poorly the brilliant vermillion paint held up over thirty years."

BN Train At Cement

Courtesy of Blair Kooistra.

Blair says:

"CW Local departs Coulee City, WA on October 11, 1980 with 15 40-foot boxcars of grain bound for west-coast export behind a mix of mostly former Northern Pacific F9A and B's and a GP7 and GP9--and one former SP&S F3, 712.

"Most of the cars wear BN paint--the rest a mix of Great Northern and Burlington. Why no unpainted NP boxcars? A close look at the repainted cars might answer that question: 10 of the 11 repainted cars appear to be former Northern Pacific B2's. The freight car nerd within me wonders why the NP cars were repainted at a faster rate than the GN or CB&Q 40-foot cars?

"I did the same shot 10 months later--still F-units and geeps, but this time, all covered hoppers. The only 40' boxcars seen were being used to haul grain off the Eleanor spur."

2013 EWG Storage Car Pickup

March 12, 2013. Starting at Odair where the power was split to pull cars off the wye, then combined with the few loads from Coulee City. The train then went to Cement where a car was set out and the power reassembled. Last shots are at Hartline, where no work was done that day.

Cement Unloading At Cement

Courtesy of the Coulee Pioneer Museum

April 3, 1972

This was the time of the building of the third powerhouse at Grand Coulee Dam. Bulk cement was brought int by railroad car, and then unloaded into trucks for the final 30 mile move to the construction site at the dam.

This unloading site was built for this purpose, as there had not been a siding of any sort here prior.

In this view, you can see the waters of Banks Lake and the town of Coulee City on the upper left.

1988 BN Action At Coulee City

Guest post by Rick Morgan.

September 13, 1988

A grain train is departing town on the old NP CW line. They used four units (BN 2092, EMDX 770, 762, BN 2526) to pull loads out and met up with a fifth locomotive, GP35 2532 just east of town at Cement before heading for Cheney and Spokane. 

Four units pull grain loads out of Coulee City. They're working hard as they fight the grade out of town. 

 

BN 2092 climbs out of Coulee City WA on 13 Sep 1988 with three other units.

 

BN 2092 and its mates have climbed with their grain loads out of Coulee City and enter Cement, where they will join up with a GP35 before continuing east 

BN GP35 2532 had been working cars at Odair, a short spur just east of town, and was waiting at Cement for the train out of Coulee City. Having retrieved the stray unit, they head out in an easterly direction. (This picture is actually from down the line at Hartline.)

BN caboose 10559 brings up the markers as its train departs Cement for Cheney and Spokane.

The train having departed east, quiet returns to the elevator complex at Coulee City.

Aerial View Of Cement Unloading At Cement

Courtesy of the Bureau of Reclamation.

April 3, 1972

Views show the unloading of cement powder at Cement. It was unloaded here and trucked up to Grand Coulee Dam during the building of the third powerhouse.

2005 PCC Timetable 105 Extracts