Jun 9, 2015

MRL passenger train visits Spokane.....and go right back east.

One in a 100 times when I travel home from the office I take the scenic route along the BNSF tracks and find something out of the ordinary. Today was such a day.  Time 5:00 pm, Monday 6/8/15. One of the classiest passenger train you will ever see is this Montana Rail Link train arriving in Spokane for a brief stay.  It's pulled by a huge SD70 that is sparkling clean!
 
The 6 cars included 2 dome cars and an observation car. Probably a diner in there somewhere.
 
The shades are pulled as it came west in 100 degree heat and I never saw anyone in the cars but I'm sure someone was in there.
 
You could be my very best, good friend if you owned this car! What a way to travel and take in the northwest scenery from a dome car or observation car!  Dennis Washington owns MRL and I think he is a model railroader .....but in full scale.
It stopped east of Yardley for a moment as I took my final shot. Keith Wiles just told me on the phone that it was turned on the wye near the turntable and headed back to Montana. MRL has trackage rights to Spokane but they don't come this far west very often. Thank you Dennis!

Jun 6, 2015

SP&S rules the Evergreen!

The Queen Mary is what they could call the SP&S #750 as she was the only E unit on the roster. Here she leads a Steve Wesloski passenger train with a lowly F unit in tow past the Spokane International yard.
 
Here she pulls into the Evergreen Union Station to pick up more customers on their way to Spokane.
 
Her journey passes a freight train pulled by Keith's Alco FA power heading in the other direction.
 
The square nose of an FA was a distinctive difference from the EMD
F units that were the standard around the country.
 
Staying out of the traffic were my SP&S C-636s as they needed maintanance on something or another.
 
They meet up with each other again on this crossover in the front part of the layout. The engineer of #750 is going to be surprised when he comes to an abrupt dead end. But I got the shot...right?