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."
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