3000 Injury-Free Days on Sounder

You read right...3000 days. Amazing! BNSF announced that their crews have had more than eight injury-free years running Sounder trains. They've also achieved a 99% on-time performance record for 2008, while seeing a ten-fold increase in ridership since the start of service.

I think some of these folks need to have coffee with the Coast Starlight crews sometime...

North End Trains Center in Seattle-PI

Nice little PI write-up on a favorite haunt of mine - North End Train Center.

It's funny that the article mentions "Rivet Counters," referring to the friendless loners dedicated hobbyists who find so much happiness in insisting on the most minute of details (like rivets on model trains). Heck, I'm hard pressed to even have a working model train, let alone one that is rivetly correct. Model accuracy aside, North End Train Center is a great place to go.

My first visit was at their old store within earshot of Dick's in Lake City. Their new spot isn't too far away, due north on Lake City Way. Two favorite areas for the boys are the Thomas table and the backroom where the model railroading club is running trains from time to time.

One thing I have never been able to figure out - and this isn't North End Train's fault - is why are railroad books and magazines so darned expensive?

Light Rail U-Link Contract Bid Below Estimate

The first major bid from a contractor for building the Sound Transit U-Link from Downtown Seattle to the UW is a stunning 34% below estimates. Some analysts are attributing this to the economy's downturn, which makes for heavy competition from contractors looking for work. Of course the bid is being checked over, to make sure it's not a fantasy lowball number.

In the article linked above we also discover that the segment of Interstate 5 that runs through the area served by the proposed link operates at levels "over capacity" for up to 8 hours a day. It's not surprising to me; since the 1980s a person hasn't been able to even go southbound on a Saturday through this area, without hitting heavy congestion. And with population in that area predicted to grow, it's no wonder the U-Link project got high priority in DC when federal money was doled out.

This is exciting stuff for a railfan like me, because it's like the rebirth of The Interurban!

SD9 In The Deadline

It's a slow news week for trains if you live in Washington. If this was a blog about California railroading we would be discussing a BNSF grant given to a San Bernardino organization or a spill of some sort outside Barstow. But we're here...waiting...

In light of this I've decided to dig into the wayback files and pull out this photo of an SD9 in what appears to be the deadline at the Interbay yard. Built in 1957 as #438 for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy (CBQ), 6185 survived at least until 2004 when this photo was taken.

What happened to it after that is anybody's guess; I find no records or pictures on the Internet more recent than this one. Possibly scrapped? The road number 6185, however, is again in use on the BNSF - this time as an ES44AC.

Rail Trail Spotlight - Snoqualmie Valley Trail

View Rail Trail Map

Sometimes the best way to understand history is to see what's left of it. That's what makes rail trails such a great resource to us, because we can see our state from the perspective of the railroader who contributed so much to making Washington a viable place. The routes left after railroads have abandoned them are usually easy to ride and a great way to view nature.

This quiet abandoned line was home to the once mighty Milwaukee Road. It's now part of a comprehensive trail system within King County that spans roughly 31 miles - past fast-flowing rivers, across highways, spanning massive trestles, and climbs effortlessly to Snoqualmie Falls then southeast towards Snoqualmie Pass. By horse or bike, the trail reintroduces even the hardest of urban visitors to what the whole of the Northwest once was - green, overcast, and undisturbed.

It's quiet and not well known. I started bicycling on this line back in the early 1990s, before King County began making improvements. Back then a person could ride from the intersection of State Route 203 & NE124th to SE 356th St between Fall City and Snoqualmie; at that point there was a bridge missing over a deep chasm in the hillside. Now the trail follows most of the old line, with the exception of a stretch of a couple miles that was reclaimed by landowners (riders are pointed towards SR 203 to get back to the trail). A person can still find rail spikes here and there along the route. While I've ridden most of it I've never ridden the entire length, which is a testament to its length of 31 miles.

Stories exist about the route,which ran from Monroe to the MILW connection at Cedar Falls, but to date I've been able to locate only a few photos of anything on the line - and nothing more recent than the early 1900s. I understand from one person who grew up in the area that the Milwaukee started running heavy U-Boats on the line in the 1970s in an attempt to reduce the amount of northbound runs over trackage-rights lines, which completely obliterated the light-grade rails and ballast. Derailments were pushed over the side and into the oxbow lakes that lined the route near Stillwater. While I don't know exactly when it was abandoned, I can't imagine it was in any usable shape by 1980 when MILW pulled out of Washington entirely.

Here's a few photos in a slideshow that I snapped recently along the route!