Jul 28, 2017

Misc. shots from the Evergreen Railroad

 
I believe this is a Steve Weso train which is a current version of the real thing we rode on to Havre last week.
It looks like it is going fast....but how fast? Our little speedometer was just down the road so lets see.
 
Hummm...79 miles per hour! That's the legal speed of the real ones so it is OK to run at the club as well.
 
New member Doug Neighswonger has this little Plymouth switch engine doing yard duty.
No 79 miles per hour for this guy!
 
Another new item from Doug was this 3 unit set of Wabash power passing Union Station.
 
The tail car on Steve's train had a company car tacked on for some big shot on the BN riding in his
luxury observation car.
 
A lowly Alco RS2 does a transfer of coal cars to some customer down the line. It seems we should charge
the railroad about $250.00 a car fee to get it through Cobbleton? Just like Spokane? Amagine
what that coal price will be by the time it arrives at the customer?

Jul 24, 2017

Oh no...not another Birthday party! 36 of them each year!

 
 
 

Good morning, sunshine!

 
 
 
Our train club decided to go on a trip by train to Montana as a group and 17 of us brave souls ventured forth. We left Spokane early in the morning of
Saturday and woke up in Whitefish, Montana on our journey to a small town further down the line. Hello Montana!
 
Here are 2 unlikely riders on the train as both were BNSF engineers, now riding the rails as customers...
paying customers! That's Keith on the left and John on the right looking at the scenery from a side window
instead of a windshield.
 
Around lunch time we arrive at Havre, Montana where they preserved a Great Northern 4-8-4 steam engine
that used to run past this spot on a regular basis for 25 years before diesels knocked them off. I left the guy
in the shot to show how big they were.
 
After lunch in Havre we got back on Amtrak to now journey west back to Spokane. Two new GE engines were
our power to allow that to happen.
 
Ver Walker takes a photo of me taking a photo of the train we are about to ride back to Spokane.
The journey was some 1200 miles and 24 hours long. The ticket cost was about $160.00 per member
and next year this ride may not be available if budget cuts occur in Congress. 20 Trillion and counting!
 
On Marias Pass in the Rockies we travel past spots I railfanned many times in my life, now I see it
from a different perspective from the train. I may never make it back here again. What a ride!

Jul 15, 2017

Putting Spokane on the map!

 
 
Here's a little known fact that may have escaped you non-railfans on this list!
We beat all the others in quantity of concrete ties on a single day. I bet that
makes all of us real proud.  Its located near Hartford Road near Idaho along Trent Ave
on the old NP, now BNSF.
 
Here's another record of 14 wild turkeys visiting my new home in the Spokane Valley. Those are my garbage cans
that they are inspecting for future feeding adventures. Future 14 Thanksgiving meals I would guess?
 
 
After a months absence I finally have an operable computer as all 95.000 photos have been transferred
to my new computer along with my addresses on you guys. Did anyone miss me? Steve Weso had has
SP&S Alco loco running on the Green branch that has a lot of tunnels to endure.
 
 
Another Steve Weso creation is a set of SD units that have the rare Orange/black nose stripes.
 
Another Steve Weso shot of a 6 Alcos of various schemes and models. One hopes we will see another Weso video
of these trains as well.
 
This is a non-Weso ( we think ) creation on a Saskatchewan grain car altered in a fashion that might
make it the official paint scheme as it was done so well to the car. The best graffiti job that I ever saw
and I didn't do it either!