PCC Cab Ride

 
Guest post by Vaughn MacKenzie.

Railroading with Mike & Tom on the Palouse River & Coulee City, early November 1997. Longtime friend David Roberts and I scored a cab ride from Cheney to Reardan and it was a fantastic adventure. The weather was perfect, albeit cold & drafty in the aging GP35 lead locomotive. The excitement began just as we were rolling out of town at 10mph with our consist of 52 cars when we nearly hit a white Olds at a crossing. A lady panicked and stopped on the tracks then couldn’t get backed up, and her passenger quickly bailed out. She was frantically fumbling with the gear selector. Tom dumped the air and we stopped mere inches from her bumper. The rest of the ride was less eventful but beautiful. The accomodations in the locomotive were somewhat lacking, so if nature called we were instructed to step onto the catwalk when we were out in open countryside, secure a firm grip on the railing with one hand and let it fly with the other 😂.

Coach Fares CW Branch Spokane To Coulee City

 

2019 Western Group Feature On The Washington Eastern

 

New Power For The CBRW

September 7, 2025

Spotted at Four Lakes, WA over the weekend were 4 SD40-2s purchased from Western Rail for service on the Columbia Basin Railway. They were testing for a week or so on sister company Washington Eastern, who also happens to be the connecting carrier to Western Rail. I suppose the thinking would be if there are any hiccups, the shop is close by. Rumor is these would be shipped to Yakima for further setup after testing.

2018 Highline Grain Shipping Rates

This was shared with me from one of the owners of the Eastern Washington Gateway back in 2018.

Hi Dan,

Please see the attached BNSF tariff schedules for wheat. 4022-43591 covers the shuttle trains from Four Lakes, McCoy and Templin while 4022-43595 covers all of the singles. The best rate from Ephrata is $2,440 PC (24-47 cars, 286,000 lbs.) vs. the Four Lakes shuttle rate of $1916 PC. Now, there are incentives for unloading and loading ($100 PC, I believe) in less than 10 hours which help reduce the shuttle rate. But, you can see that if the scoot tariff is very high, HLG is incentivized to ship smaller lots from other locations.

Best regards, XXXX

Unloading At Highline Grain

Guest post by Bruce Butler.

Yesterday, 1/26/2021, I was assigned to train HG26-1, unloading 72 grain loads brought in by our scoot train. Some breaks in the unloading process gave me the opportunity to shoot some pictures.

 

We have unloaded about 25 cars and a "lot change" situation gave me some time for outside pictures. This view looks north.

 

Same spot, but looking North East with the Highline Grain elevator shown on the right.

Another view, looking North East.

Looking south. The bridge under I-90 is in the distance. The inner loop, used by BNSF unit trains is on the left and curves to the east. The track on the far left (note the derail at the very edge of the picture) is a stub track, mostly used to set out any bad order cars.

 

 Looking east across the stub track at the Highline elevator.

 

We are at the tail track of the wye and I had to align that switch for the west leg, where my train is sitting, before proceeding. Another "lot change" situation delayed unloading the next car and gave me the time to get the switch without having to pause the unloading activity.

We have finished unloading this 72 car train and I have pulled forward enough to clear the unloading shed. This gives the Highline crew the ability to sweep the floor of stray grain and do their clean-up.

 

Another view from the same location above. We are right in the switch at Four Lakes, where the Highline spur switches off of the CW main.

 

For those who might be interested, here is the official WSDOT (Washington Department of Transportation) track plan for the Highline Grain Facility.