WER Blair Style

Courtesy of Blair Kooistra.

September 2020

Blair says:

"World-traveler Steven J. Brown and I made the most of today, rambling the countryside west and south of Spokane for a bit of branchline and shortline variety-and had a blast doing so.

"Our intelligence said "be at Reardan for sunrise," and there we were, and almost to the minute, the eastbound Eastern Washington Railroad scoot train headed to Four Lakes arrived as the sun peaked over the horizon. Two SD40-2's on a full train had engineer Ted Curphey peg the throttles to the 8th notch on the climb out of Reardan, winding between the hills in the amazing light of dawn. At Hite, a GP30 was added for additional grunt climbing out of Deep Creek. The morning was still, the light sublime. . .I really love eastern Washington at dawn..."

 

You Thought Locomotives Were Big

My photo. 

February 6, 2021

Big business in the small town of Coulee City (population around 550) is grain. Here is proof!

While the round tanks are of various vintages, the crib elevators are approaching the century mark in age, having been built by Coulee City grain pioneer George McDonald. All are dwarfing the SD40-2s of the Washington Eastern. Oh, and these elevators and tanks are the small ones in town. 

Artsy Fartsy On The Washington Eastern

My photo.

June 12, 2020

WER 3776 West

My photo.

February 6, 2021

Three SD40-2s of the Washington Eastern have just crossed US 2 between Hartline and Coulee City, near the old spur of Carr.

CBRW GP38s Arrive At Western Rail

Guest post by Blaize Merryman.

December 14 and 15, 2025.

2 Ex CBRW Locomotives got delivered to the Western Rail shops at Airway Heights, Washington. 

Specifically, engines #2087, EMD GP38, & #2184, EMD GP38. 

These engines recently got replaced by Ex Spokane, Spangle & Palouse #3903 and #3904, which are both GP39-3s and are now operating on the Central Washington Railway. 

BNSF's Lind Turn dropped the engines off at Cheney, Washington for the Washington Eastern Railway to take to the Western Rail Facility in Airway Heights, which involved some switching to get the locomotives inside the facility, pulling out an additional 3 locomotives to be able to shove the 2 "new" engines into the facility. 

Speaking of, the 538 locomotive has an interesting new look to it!

 

2019 Western Group Feature On The Washington Eastern

 

Quad County Regional Transportation Plan 2017-2037

Just the railroad parts of the document.

 

 

2018 EWG To WER Change In Operators Exemption

 Click for a larger view.