Remembering the Milwaukee Road

After waiting 3 hours on a hillside in Rosalia, Washington here comes an westbound over a very unique concrete bridge that still stands today but without rails or even a railroad. I remember it was cold and windy!

A  favorite photo of mine was shot by our pal Chuck Heimerdinger who came up here to Dawson, Montana from sunny California back in the 1960s. The formatting on this photo is terrific showing the 2 kinds of electric locomotives they were running back in the good old days. Is today going to be considered by some as the good old days in 20 years?

I don't remember who shot this photo but it wasn't me because I am in the shot with my pretty white pants in a railroad yard! The place was Deer Lodge, Montana a busy spot for the railroad back in the day.

Back in the day when I could climb hills without catching my breath,  my good friend Leon Callaway from California came up here to see the final days of Milwaukee Road electric operations. The date is May 15th, 1974 and the power will be shut off in exactly 1 month to go. 

One of my all time favorites was me catching these old Boxcab eclectics in helper service at East Portal, Montana, which is on the Montana/Idaho border and about ready to enter a long tunnel. First off I was lucky to have my 300mm lens on as I didn't know they were coming until I saw them. Second, if they didn't have empty flat cars in the front of the engines, then no shot would be possible. Third, there was still sufficient light to stop the action with not much time to decide focal length, speed of the camera and formatting the shot. Lucky seems to come to my mind at being in the right place at the right time. Remember these are 50 year old machines when I took these photos, not many locomotives are around that long! I was in a time warp!

I remember Spokane especially the Great Northern

We lived in Spokane for almost 2 years before the cold winter of 1968-69 arrived and did I think twice about the wisdom of moving here! On this day in January 1969 the weather was minus 20 degrees and looking at the water to the east of the Great Northern station you can see the "heat" coming off the water in relation to the air temps.

Big Sky Blue was about to be bumped from the railroad as the BN merger is about to take over. This is a view of Hillyard looking northeast from the Francis Ave bridge. Western Fruit Express is in the background. Now this scene has but 2 tracks passing through to Colville, Washington.

One of my all time favorite places to take photos was at the Great Northern station where you could cross the tracks at Howard Street, park the car next to the tracks and take pictures without anybody stopping you or even question you and your intent. The Empire Builder came in late to Spokane and handed over cars to the SP&S for the Portland, Oregon train. The tower is the only thing remaining in this photo.

The Western Star was my favorite train to photograph on the GN as it arrived in Spokane around 2:30 pm and departed at 3 pm. Check out the clock.

The 1968 NRHS convention in Spokane gave us access to Hillyard where major repairs were made to GN equipment. It was a huge facility that fell out of favor with the BN officials who looked for ways to economize on their property. It employed over 500 people at one time and now Hillyard is long gone. Check out that crazy company car on the bottom.

Future photo spot for non trespassing railfans.

It's almost finished! The overpass on Havana Road is now paved and stripped and soon will be available for train shooting into the BNSF ( NP ) Parkwater/ Yardley, Washington. This was my favorite viewing spot before the bridge was built.

The water continues to rise in the mill pond. I would guess another 1/4 inch of liquid should do it.

The cars are lining up with extra logs and stuff on the other side of the mill. Soon production smoke will be rising from those smokestacks.

Brock and James showed up Thursday and ran these 3 monster SD90s on the railroad. They ran smoothly and are could pull lots of cars just like their big brothers.

 Mr. Persistence, Al Cunningham finally got his 3 CN locos to pull together and took his 30 car train around Old City.

And now...the 10 o'clock news from Greenacres, Washington

Allan had his 2 CP engines pulling a loaded 20 car coal train. They were even burning the stuff to make their locos go!

My newest addition to the roster is this rare 2-6-6-2 Weyerhaeuser steam engine which there were only 2 ever built for the backwoods of America. The Weyerhaeuser caboose is a figment of my imagination but I needed something for my log train.

2 of Jim Bowden's Big CN locos pass by the mill that is taking shape of the end of the front part of the layout.

Steve Welton's big UP engines lead by Heritage WP #1983. We now have 3 Steves in the club. At one time we had 4 Mikes.

Saturday action on the Evergreen Railroad

I stopped by the club on Saturday and Jim was running trains to the pleasure of family so I got my camera out to record the action.

 

After spending 40 years in Alaska in the service and business Jim has an affinity for the Alaska Railroad. Those grain cars

are outstanding!

 

His granddaughter was there and admired Jim's trains running the layout. Lucky guy this Jim Bowden is... would you agree?

 

Sunday morning was a rain day in the Spokane area, at least around my home. Look at the flood at the bottom of my hill.

Saturday I was at the Fairgrounds and it rained so hard the roof edge of the building looked like a waterfall!

 

The B units are everywhere! These GP60s used to be mainline power pulling high speed intermodals. Now they are just

helpers on local service trains.

 

As least 4 B units are on this train facing west  They were ex-Santa Fe power before the merger. I didn't see any No Trespass

signs...did I?

Saturday night at the Evergreen Railroad

Wanting more social interaction with members and family the Evergreen Club thought that having run nights on random Saturday evening with pizza being served would be a benefit for club activities. Here we have Alco C-424's from the SP&S running over the Beaver Canyon Bridge.

 Steve Welton's high horsepower units waits for a train to pass before entering the main.

The new Titanic Ice Company had a grade crossing installed over the tracks and it is so new it had not received the weathered look yet.  I'll get my best crew on it right away!

 The SP&S Alcos pass that very spot near the Ice Company as it passes our one and only farm.

Speaking of Alcos, John Smith had his SP PA's in for a spin as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Detailing the Evergreen RR

Instead of the plain Jane corner on the second section of our layout, conversations were talking about what could we do to these corners. We elevated the hillside about 2 inches with our Oatmeal scenery stuff, added ground colors and finally trees. Not bad for a bunch of kids.

Allan came up with an idea to add a touch of a road at the edge of the layout, but I was aprensive. When I finally saw how it was going to look I changed my mind. The edge of the earth implies there is more scenery beyond the layout edge.

Jim Bowden has been working on the lighting of the structures in the mill area. Just because we have lights don't mean that anyone is home!

Traffic Jam

I was minding my own business, not trespassing or anything when I noticed a few trains roaming around the west end of Yardley, Washington. My original intent was to shoot the train further away but it backed down to its current location. The yard that the train is on to the upper left was the original line the Northern Pacific used back in 1880s. The main line is now the one at the lower right where the containers are.

 With my telephoto we see the new Havana Street overpass going in. It has been almost 2 years and it is not opened yet.One of our members at Evergreen RR was told that the delay is from the bridge sinking almost 6 inches! Yikes! I wonder if it  was a shovel ready job?

Back in business!

My computer was in the shop for almost 2 weeks and I am back at the keyboard!

Allan took my camera the other day and played with the telephoto to get this long view of my little 4-4-0 Northern Pacific crossing Kyle Canyon. Roy Wyatts's son built this bridge for us and it seems right that we name it after him. I could be talked out of it!

Lloyd showed up on Thursday and ran his Union Pacific Gas Turbine pulling one of 4 coal trains he now has. Allan's work on  the ice house looks good from any angle.

We're not in Kansas anymore Dorothy ( not with those mountains )as UP power passes a Kansas City Southern caboose owned by Steve Welton.

Just to prove we are not narrow focused with just northwest railroads, Steve has 3 EMD's making the rounds. Must be the first time on the rails as there is no indication that they ever turned a wheel. Too clean!

Another view of Lloyds' UP Gas Turbine making its way up a stiff grade to get to the tunnel in the front of the layout. I have a Gas Turbine as well but mine has sound that all the members love to hear it run!

Rick keeps chipping away at the lumber mill and Allan added the signs that I made for it through my Signal Signs process.

We are now officially international now that a Canadian industry has been identified on our layout.

There's that pesky little steam engine we saw on the first e-mail and I thought this angle is a bit different than other we have used.

The smoke in Photo shopped in to give it a bit of life.

This shot was taken on Sunday when we had our visitor from England and he was a Milwaukee Road and Northern Pacific modeler! Ah, the good old days! Maybe that's why we do model railroading to keep the memories alive?

 

 

Visitor form England gets a real show!

We had a terrific turnout for our impromptu run date for our friend from England named Neil Horton. He is a veterinarian over in the mother land but loves Northwest Railroads after seeing a copy of a Trains magazine many years ago. His favorites are Northern Pacific and Milwaukee Road and we did not fail him!

I brought one of my Little Joe electrics and photographed it in the front part of the layout.

If we are going to let in England visitors we may as well let Allan run his Canadian National passenger train to run with the US stuff. Hey, we are almost neighbors!

 Jim had his brand new SD45 NP units pulling a freight and they ran beautiful.

This could be Montana as the NP & Milwaukee ran about 100 miles next to each other near Missoula, Drummond, Clinton, St Regis, Deer Lodge, and Butte.

 

Ready to get a roll on is Jim's new NP FT 4 unit set. This model was EMD's answer to end the era of the steam engine.

The new ice station make a good backdrop for a passing train.

Old and new Northern Pacific power is captured in this shot as with real life branch lines and industries got the cast offs from the parent road. I still think my little 4-4-0 steamer is cuter than Jimmy's new diesels!

Playing favorites? You bet! Little Joe gets a helping hand with a GE U-boat in transit, probably going to get fixed or scrapped. I should have put up the pantagraphs for the photos.