CBRW At Shano

Courtesy of Blair Kooistra.

September 2020

Blair says:

"Several miles up the long slog from Connell, the Columbia Basin's Connell turn is still full-out with its five SD9s and a GP9 as it passes the old elevator complex at Shano with 96 cars on the drawbar, Monday, 27 September. ROARR!"

 

Boxcars Along The Upper Coulee

Courtesy of the Coulee Pioneer Museum.

Around 1938?

1917 NP AFE Gloyd ROW Fence

Courtesy of the NPRHA.

BN Train Leaving Hartline

Courtesy of Blair Kooistra.

Westbound leaving Hartline, WA, August 15, 1981. 

"Kinetic-Electric"

Guest post by Frederick Manfred Simon. 

July 20, 2017

A touch of haze; a thin veil of atmospheric cover; a balmy 83°: An easting Eastern Washington Gateway procession, straight outta Coulee City arrowing towards Hartline in 10 with 20 belly-aching-full hoppers of locally harvested gold, comfortably ambles along – kinetically at times – with ample 6-axle power over a multi-mile tangent just as the electricity it passes under from mega hydro electric near 2,700MW capacity Coulee Dam flows along an endless tangent of high-power lines that electrifies the ever increasing, ceaseless energy demands of the many megatropolises to the south, further south, and between. Note the three – over the years – successively added lattice towers. Because the “CW” no longer reaches Connell as – long ago – it once did (today's terminus Coulee City), loads must first be brought east where trans-loaded into one of BNSF’s 300+ sets of 100+ unit grain trains via the Highline Grain facility at Four Lakes from whence the seed heads west for export or processing for increasing, endless consumption demands.

Trinidad Trinity

Guest post by Frederick Manfred Simon.

November 14, 2017

Solid, liquid, gas, i.e., snow, water, clouds…and cold and wind and rocks. That was Trinidad today. 14 November 2017. The time of year when the elements as atmospheric forces become unruly and dispense their “ugliness” upon the landscape and all that is about it. Most would snap their collar up, turn their back to the chilling wind, and walk away in search of soonest shelter; preferably warm. I guess that’s one way to “look” at it. But it’s not nearly the only way to look at, or rather, to “see” what is at hand. Call it potential if you will. Perspective-potential? Yup. To be able to eek out something relatively pleasing (hopeful) out of what appears to be unpleasing (hopeless). What was it Andy Dufresne said, "Get busy living, or get busy dying.” Yeah. I know. I got it, but don't get it. The doctrine of divine, unblemished sunshine or nothing at all – still? – reigns supreme, though I say "Sic semper tyrannis!" and go my way come hell or high water; rain or shine(ola). By crikey! I will apply my mind and all I’ve installed therein to what is before me to do what I have come to do: capture the scene regardless of inclemency. That’s right: improvise, adapt, overcome. And what I “saw” here was a teeny-tiny train conducting its Sisyphean exercise in the midst of this primordial landscape misshapen by unimaginable cataclysmic forces, weather notwithstanding. So what about the train? Seems completely irrelevant, save to provide a pedestrian perspective of how infinitely “small” man and his machine are in sardonic comparison, and I kinda like trains too.

 

 

CBRW Wheeler Turn View

Photo by Gary Durr.

Friday March 4th, 2016, the CBRW Moses lake job rolls into Wheeler, Washington with and SD-9, GP-9, and an SD-19 for power as it rolls past the old NP water tower.... this was my first time at wheeler, and was impressed with the amount of industry that was there...The train switched around at Wheeler for about 45-60 minutes before heading out to Grow Jct on the line to Moses lake.

EWG Deep Creek View

Photo by Gary Durr.

May 2017

An EWG Westbound scoot train led by three big EMD units, is just starting its climb out of Deep creek at MP 15 on a beautiful warm spring afternoon. After one of the most grueling winters that I have ever experienced, it is wonderful to see the beautiful blue skies, green trees and fields... and BARE ground..Spring has sprung here in Eastern Washington....the many flooded fields and drainage ditches are finally drying up and the weather has been getting increasingly warmer... Life is Good...

Rail Grinder Near Smyrna

Courtesy of Dave Morgan. Photos by Eric Morgan.

SRGX 208, Speno Rail Grinder. A rail grinder working a couple of miles east of Smyrna, headed east. Exact date is not known, but I think around 1965. Photo by Eric Morgan.