Eastern Washington Gateway Railroad Company-Lease and Operation Exemption-Washington State Department of Transportation

 

MRL 8924 On The CW

Guest post by John Howell. 

It’s December 2, 2007, and not-yet-relettered NIWX SD45 8924 and leased MRL SD40-2 260 head west with empty grain cars near MP54 on the “CW Sub,” formerly operated by Eastern Washington Gateway RR, between Rocklyn and Creston, WA.

NIWX 7311

Photo courtesy of Ted Curphey. 

The locomotive never really operated well, as it needed quite a few item repaired, including a lot of low voltage wiring. It now sits at the Blackwell Northern in Kansas.

Hand Drawn CW Map

Drawn by Robert Scott for a feature on the Eastern Washington Gateway he was working on at the time.

2012 Wilbur Derailment Photos

Courtesy of Bruce Butler.

March 3, 2012

NIWX 2204 Near Hartline

September 12, 2014

One of the few trips the 2204 successfully made. Or did it?

EWG Rocklyn View

Photo by Gary Durr.

May 2017

Heading West bound into the Setting sun, an Empty EWG Scoot train led by a former MRL SD45 rolls through Rocklyn Washington on its way to Hartline and Coulee city... Longer days and better weather, I am surprised that I have not seen more railfans out photographing the old EMD power that usually draws many to the east side of the state.

Mondovi Derailment Photos

Leaving the date out, for now.

Is This Montana?

June 21, 2016

No, it's not Montana. During the summer of 2016 the MRL 290, a former Great Northern SDP40, was leased to the Eastern Washington Gateway. This was a shortline operation of a former NP branchline from Cheney to Coulee City, WA.

I can confirm that more pixels were exposed to the 290 that summer than any of the motley collection of power the EWG operated, including the 3 SD45s they had at startup.

In the first photo we see the 290 lashed up with the NIWX 9129, a C40-8 of UP heritage, drifting downgrade just south of Odair, WA on approach to Coulee City.

Peeking through the sagebrush on the right are brand new well cars, stored on the east leg of the wye. Not seen very well, but just above the well cars is the 1953 abandoned grade of the 'mainline' connection to Adrian. County road 36 NE is seen just to the right of the 290. The clubhouse of the Coulee City Gun Club is the structure middle right.

Best I figure, the 290's future is uncertain, with the demise of the MRL right around the corner. The 9129 gave up it's prime mover a year or so ago to another locomotive in the NIWX fleet. It was a reliable engine for the shortline while it was here.

Dave Reagan is the engineer. Zachary Hastings is the conductor this day.

A note on those well cars. They may still be in the ditch along this line close to the old station of Telford. When they were finally recalled, they never got out. See them here.

Final EWG General Order

 

2016 Frontier Rail To Royal Slope

Thanks to John Smoots for sharing this.

"Coles Crossing"

Guest post by Frederick Manfred Simon.

 December 23, 2017

02:56 crew change at Cole’s Crossing (homestead in the background) somewhere along US 2 between night and a barely dozen-degree morning. In the 45 cab, Eastern Washington Gateway Engineer “Jay” Pospisil (aka Popsicle) and Conductor Scott Rohrig have just been briefed by and relieved the previous crew to continue the train’s trek west on the venerable “CW.” Some 2100 feet into the icy, countlessly pinholed-black, flashing-red Fred dutifully comms control-stand-perched Mary he’s good-to-go and Jay releases the binders throttle in opposite hand opens it to give his horses the gitty up. Just above the headlight I spot Orion’s belt and I pause to consider how much tonnage this inimitable ’69 LaGrange mare has hauled about murica while she proudly wore Espee’s iconic scarlet and grey dress, and how many tons she helped shove black and blue over Mullan Pass while stabled, fed and ploughing for Montana Rail Link? Here on the EWG, she still earns her keep: daily, for the foreseeable future. Rolling, and that unmistakable squeaking of flexing flexicoil trucks and EMD turbo whine fade and vanish into the arctic darkness, my timeless image securely frozen in time. 

EWG Hanson View

Photo by Gary Durr.

May 2017

Grain isn't the only thing that the EWG(Eastern Washington Gateway RR) hauls... on this beautiful spring day C-40 #9129 hauls an extremely long string of Bare table cars East Bound through Hanson Washington. The cars have been in Storage all along the EWG line for more than a couple of years, and they are finally getting called back to service... They will be brought to Geiger Jct. and there the 9129 unit will be traded out for two big UP units, for it's final leg into Cheney Washington, where it will be interchanged to the BNSF and eventually forwarded to Union Pacific.