2011 Trouble At Deep Creek

Photo by Roger Hepkema.

February 5, 2011

Roger says:

"Engineer and GM Steve has brought the train to the top of Deep Creek Hill, but power problems on one of the rear units means that part of the train was left down below--to be retrieved later."

Roger later said to Bruce Butler:
"The 2891 and the 8924 were on the rear. (Greg was the "helper" Engineer). You showed up later in the day with Gene after I took Steve and Greg to Cheney to "borrow" the waiting BNSF outbound power to come out, put the thing back together, and pull it to the top."

Wenatchee Thurston Street Underpass

Courtesy of the City of Wenatchee.

Showing a Lines West GN9 crossing Thurston to the house track  behind the depots and tracks along Wells & Wade. No mention of why the work is happening on the city street. 

The bridge the locomotive is on is long gone.

Historic Railroad Bridge Burns

Historic railroad bridge burns during wildfire near Beverly

Courtesy of the Grant County Sheriff's Office

August 16, 2021

A wildfire near the Grant County town of Beverly on Monday evening burned only about 10 acres of sage brush but destroyed a small railroad bridge which is a part of the Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail. The bridge crossed over Crab Creek near this southeastern Grant County community.

This is a different bridge than the Milwaukee Road bridge which is under restoration. The bridge deck of that trestle, which crosses the Columbia River, burned during a 2014 wildfire and is currently undergoing restoration.

“The Columbia Basin is rich with history, and to lose a portion of that history takes away the opportunities for its enjoyment by future generations,” said Royal Slope Fire Chief Eric Linn. “We hope this lost structure is replaced as part of the current state parks restoration project.”

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Fire was located at the crossing of Crab Creek here.

Ralston Depot Rear-side View

Courtesy of Allen Miller.

Post 1980.

1982 Trinidad Derailment

Photos by John Smoots.

John recalled coming across this scene at Trinidad in 1982. Does anyone know the circumstances of the derailment?

Columbia Basin Irrigation Water At Ephrata

Photographer unknown. No date.

Water from every state in the union to be ceremonially poured into the canal of the Columbia Basin Project at the start of filling the canal.

I'm imagining the logistics of getting water from every state to Ephrata. I doubt the jars were moved too far on the cart!

Anyone know who the lady is?

Grain From Mansfield

Photo courtesy of Blair Kooistra.

Blair says:

"Clanging and banging over the light, jointed rail, grain leaking from the doorways and from gapped floorboards on each gap in the rails, Burlington Northern's "Withrow Turn" begins its descent to the former Great Northern mainline at Columbia River siding (now Albus) coming out of Palisade canyon on August 1, 1983.

"The wheat is moving off the scenic Mansfield Branch in the channeled scablands of central Washington, one of the last places on the railroad where 40' boxcars are still used to haul grain to export elevators on the west coast. These post-war steel cars will move avoid the steep mainline over Stevens pass and move east to Spokane, combined with cuts of boxcars off the other remaining eastern Washington boxcar wheat line--the spur to Eleanor off the CW branch at Davenport--then back west on the former Northern Pacific and SP&S mainlines to elevators in Vancouver or Kalama, WA. Less than two years remain for boxcars hauling grain; by 1985, farmers had moved to trucking their harvest to elevators along the mainline for loading into high-capacity covered hoppers, and the boxcars--and the Mansfield Branch itself--were sent to scrap."

GN 5010 At Appleyard

Photographer and date unknown.

The 5010 was built in August 1927 and is shown in it's original paint. It would soon be painted in the Empire Builder colors like the trailing engine behind it. 

Beverly Bridge Construction Views

Thanks to Kyle James Jarvis for digging these out.