I'm going to sneak back a few years in time. Late afternoon of a gloomy, dark middle of winter day in 1981, so not a good photo- But it cannot be repeated today. Allen Miller and I had talked our way past the guard shack of Weyerhaeuser's Everett, Washington Mill "B", in order to visit the operator of Bridge 10, (in employee timetables this is "Delta Junction"), Burlington Northern Railroad GP9 #1799 with the Darrington Logger is passing the operator's shanty en route back to her namesake town:
It was a gloomy afternoon. There had been recent rains and snow melt. The river was up. Now and then there was 'thump' as a log or other debris hit the center pier fender piles. But it was good fun and a nice memory. When we got out there, he opened the bridge. It had a damaged cog and made a bang sound whenever that tooth was engaged. When this train was coming, he closed the bridge. Shortly thereafter we left and he opened the bridge again. We could hear that bad spot from shore as it was pivoting.
Rare catch for this EMD beauty, it hardly ever is seen out of the S. Seattle Intermodal Yard! Lucky for me, it pulled a long string out of the yard! Check out the VERY visible C&S lettering from back in the late 70's!! Sounded awesome too, oh my!
A Locomotive very worthy of modeling!! Note the blue #3 Rad fan, along with all the other glaring details. Thanks Kurt!
BN 12362, beautiful graffiti free caboose, (shoving platform) at Auburn today. Nice to see a clean one! Actually, now that I look closer, they still use it as a caboose-still has the generator on the truck, seats in the cupola, and a nice horn for back-up moves!
I keep both NS and CSX's emergency numbers on my cell phone. I never used either until last month when I came across a stuck gate arm and flashers at a rural crossing. I phoned NS and they were great. I gave them the location per NS identification of the crossing and they were genuinely appreciative.
Yeah, I have both BNSF and UP on my phone. Never have had to call in yet. I am waiting to see something like this to give them a ring.
Not much use for the Green Machine over Stevens Pass this year, snow is pretty low so far this winter. Bummer..
Around here all we have been seeing are the newer HARSCO spreaders. I wish we could spot one of those green ones in action!
