Port of Seattle Completes Purchase of Woodinville Sub

Local News | Port of Seattle complete rail corridor purchase | Seattle Times Newspaper

It's finally done! Final purchase price: $81 million for 42 miles of track.

After six years of BNSF efforts to sell the line, it is now in public hands, specifically the Port, King County, Sound Transit, city of Redmond, Puget Sound Energy and Cascade Water Alliance. Some of the partners want the line's transportation benefits while others want to use the right of way for utilities or foot traffic. Reports have GNP Railway and Ballard Terminal Railroad serving the freight traffic that still exists on the north end of the line.

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Journal of Commerce article: http://www.joc.com/node/415418
Seattle Times article: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com...apwarailcorridor.html

Woodinville Sub Sale to Close Soon

Mark December 15th on your calendars, because after that time the BNSF Woodinville Subdivision will be under new ownership! Price: $107 million.

Since we are in tough financial times, a group of buyers joined forces to save this right-of-way from abandonment. And here's the best part: the new owners will include Port of Seattle, King County, Sound Transit, and the City of Redmond. The northern part is still being used for freight, and will be operated by the Port. An email from their spokesperson a few months ago indicated that they were still looking for a short-line carrier to manage the line; sadly, the Temple family - owners of Washington Central and the Dinner Train - chose not to bid at that time. Redmond is interested in the stretch between Woodinville and Redmond for trail and rail access. I've long considered this portion to be a sleeper of sorts, because it runs from the busiest part of Woodinville to the busiest part of Redmond. Also imagine this: an interurban ride between the two cities through the valley and surrounded by some of the finest views in East King County. Sweet!

King County is still interested in building into their extensive trail system, and considers this corridor a vital link to many of those trails already in use. With 100 feet of right-of-way in many spots along the Woodinville Sub, operating both rails and trails can be a reality. Will Sound Transit's Link Light Rail run on part of this route? Only time and planning will tell.

Ever since late 2005, when BNSF announced that the line was for sale, I've been watching this activity as closely as possible. I even started a simple one-page website called Save The Railroad to get the word out that a priceless opportunity was ahead. That one page put me in touch with several of our elected leaders and a fair share of community organizations who were all interested in seeing the line used for the good of all. It was a great lesson in activism. Redmond's current vision for their part of of purchase mirrors almost exactly the idea I had for it back in early 2006. Amazing!

Frankly I'm thrilled to see this sale happen for several reasons. Keeping rail on this route is far too important for addressing future transportation needs. Creating more trail opportunities also makes me happy, because they not only create safer routes for peds and bicycles, but also a place for rail fans to potentially see trains up close from the safety of a dedicated walkway.

Kudos to all the groups involved!
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Article Link: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010221495_raildeal07m.html
More Subject Reading: http://www.warail.com/search?q=woodinville+subdivision

BNSF 1030 Night Shot

BNSF 1030 Night Shot, originally uploaded by KDavidClark.

It's not very often that these three items cross paths: The Moon, BNSF 1030, and a passing Union Pacific unit train of hoppers. I took this photo with my $35 Olympus 4MP digital. Despite the age, and so-called 'smaller' megapixel size, it has the handy feature of Night Shot - allowing for the equivalent of a 4-second open shutter.

The conditions outside that night were almost completely dark (short of the moon and stair lighting on the locomotive) and the camera had very little to even grab for auto-focus. The resulting shot had a lot of digital noise that thankfully went away when I converted it to a filtered grey scale and used the Despeckle feature in Photoshop Elements 6.

The cropping is wide and skinny on purpose; it seemed to be the type of border that called out to me based on what was in the shot!

Video - BNSF & UP Meet in Vancouver WA

BNSF #4582 Meets UP #7772 in Vancouver, WA
by Tran77

Sit back for the next four minutes or so and check out the embedded video above. If you don't see it, click HERE to view directly in DailyMotion!

Track Fatality in Seattle

A man was killed on Saturday night on the tracks at Carkeek Park, according to this KIRO write-up. The locomotive horn scattered a number of people who were on the tracks, and the one killed was the one who didn't move. The group was not at a sanctioned crossing.

This sad tale is repeated every year along that line, at Golden Gardens and Carkeek. My heart goes out to the family and friends of this man.



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BNSF 6185 - Then and Now

Recently I did a piece on SD9 BNSF 1551, which is still trucking around Balmer Yard like an old soldier. Putting that post together made me think of a Interbay deadline occupant that my son and I photographed back in 2003 and 2004, also an SD9 numbered 6185. In order to get the shot, I had to climb ont the bed rail of my truck and stabilize myself against the cab - all in the effort to get the camera line above the fence between the road and the deadline (click HERE to see the location on a Google Map). Like 1551 this SD9 made it to the 21st century, only to be retired early into the decade. I had posted the pic above in an earlier post, but decided to expand a bit on this engine.

6185 started life as CB&Q 438 in 1957. Photos of 438 don't seem to exist so, thanks to Joe Hughes and #430, this is what 438 would have looked like in 1965:

Photo courtesy of Joe Hughes

By 1969 the unit may have received this paint scheme, portrayed here by CBQ 439:

Photo courtesy of Joe Hughes

BN Merger brought a new number, and it became 6185. By 1982 it was working Interbay, pictured HERE. By 2004 it was tied up in the yard and apparently done working. In April 2009, a picture was taken of the "new" BNSF 6185 in Ohio.

There aren't any details on what happened to the old SD9, but I'm certain it hasn't survived.

BNSF Exploring Electrification

http://www.railwayage.com/content/view/931/121/

Great Railway Age article about BNSF exploring the idea of electrifying some of its mainlines, by getting power from utility companies who want to use the railroad right-of-way for building out their services. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Let's get EMD GE to build an homage to the Little Joe and unleash them in Eastern WA!

Video - Train Report for School Project

My son was able to do a video report about trains for his class, and this is the result. He picked the media, took a lot of the photos and footage, and even chose the song used for the soundtrack. I edited, but tried to keep his voice primary in the video. You won't find much data accuracy here; David explains switcher movements in the rail yard as "fooling around." It's cool that he has a desire to explain what he sees in terms he understands. What you will discover by watching this is that an elementary schooler knows more about things like Balmer Yard and Amtrak Cascades than a lot of other kids his age!

Bottom line: starting kids early on trains can give them a reason to explore other things like video editing or photography, two areas that my son has already expressed interest in. If you don't see the embedded video below, click HERE to watch it directly on YouTube!

BNSF 1551 - SD9 at Balmer Yard

I'm pretty sure that isn't the cab this veteran was built with back in the mid-1950s, but any day you can see a locomotive of this age running around Balmer Yard is a treat.

Here's a link to a blog post I did about how many numbers this engine has been given over the last nearly 40 years:

http://blog.seattlepi.com/wetrails/archives/170077.asp

There's also a video highlighting that awesome non-turbo sound of an old diesel. Enjoy!

News - New Pasco Branch in Design Soon

A new industrial park means a new BNSF branch line in Pasco. Design contract has been approved, and now the work to connect the railroad with this new commerce resource is underway.

It's nice for once to see "Add" instead of "Abandon" in terms of tracks!



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Alaskan Way and Broad Street - Then and Now

Today's Then and Now segment isn't as extreme in terms of years as others that have been posted here. It's only a matter of half a decade. Check out the video embedded below (click HERE if you can't see it). It shows a BNSF freight heading south under the Olympic Sculpture Park.

Video courtesy of Citywalker on Flickr

Now compare it to the photos below, taken in 2005 and 2006 before the park was completed. First one - like the video - shows a BNSF freight heading south through Broad Street crossing.

Second picture shows riders getting off Metro's Waterfront Trolley. Where the bridge stands now was once the car barn for these machines. Promises back in 2005 to reinstate the line once a new car barn was built near Pioneer Square have fallen through; thankfully the trolleys are in "deep storage."

The trolley service is the element I miss the most from this spot.

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Fatality on BNSF Tracks In Ephrata

Pedestrian fatality on the BNSF Mainline through Ephrata, away from a designated crossing. A very tragic story, sadly repeated many times throughout the year.

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Video - Air Freight and Commuter Trains

Here's some mixed video I shot at Horton St in Seattle. A UPS Plane flying overhead during some of the footage - backed by beautiful blue sky - was a nice surprise!

Spokane BNSF Conductor Safety Winner for 2008

Conductor Terrence "Ed" Carlson of Spokane is one of 2008's BNSF Safety Employees Of The Year. Also included is a 33-year employee who has never had an accident at work! I'm thinking he may have had a hangnail or two over three decades, but the company is probably not counting those.

Video - BNSF 2125 And The Garbage Train

Here is a video I shot of BNSF 2125 assembling the Garbage Train. It was the first time I attached my video camera to a tripod, in an effort to create a smooth transition back and forth as the train moved. I still prefer hand-held for this stuff, but I'm willing to try other methods. The right-of-way is along 2nd Avenue S. at Horton Street; one can park and - mostly importantly - stand legally and safely off railroad property to watch the procession of trains. Gritty as it is, this is now one of my favorite spots for train watching.

2125 is officially an EMD GP38AC built in 1971 as #648 for the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway, better known as The Frisco. This railroad was merged in to Burlington Northern in 1980, and the engines were spread across the system.

It's nice to see these merger machines still in service, almost 40 years after being built! For the record, up close this thing sounded awesome. I can imagine it in the great Frisco red & white paint scheme at some time in history.

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Video - Train Meet in Seattle

Captured this video footage along the BNSF Mainline of a Train Meet between Spokane and Horton Streets in Seattle. It was a surprise meet between the southbound Garbage Train and the northbound Coast Starlight (which appeared to be on time).

Montana has "The Night Gas." Powder River Basin has "The Coal Train." I find it funny that an eco-friendly area like Western WA is known in rail circles for "The Garbage Train." Does that resonate with anyone else?

BNSF 2759 Crossing The Duwamish

The elements of this shot developed within minutes.

While out train watching with David on Thursday night, he insisted that we go to Harbor Island. H.I. is still a bit of a mystery to me, and I'm always afraid that I will end up driving down some road with a security booth and no way out. But in the late evening light of March - thank you New Daylight Savings Schedule - I was able to see the roads of the Island a bit better than in the past. Our driving led us to SW Klickitat Way, near the bridge you see in the picture. Klickitat runs along the Duwamish River, an estuary in peril from over 100 years of industry along its banks. Efforts to clean up the river are serious and ongoing.

When we got there the bridge was up. Within seconds it started to go down. Then David saw a rumbling road switcher heading down the other side of the river, pulling a few empty hoppers. We grabbed the camera and hopped out of the truck to stand in a convenient clear spot near the tracks. Not long after, a brakeman walked across the bridge towards the switches on the other side. "Just going to get some ice cream," he smiled. We reminded him to bring two back for us.

Eventually BNSF 2759 lumbered its way over the span and I shot photos as fast as I could wind the AE-1! SODO and Harbor Island are both great places to catch urban railroading at its gritty best. Thanks to David's keen eye and persistence, we were able to get another great shot for our archives.

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Eastside Rail Corrider Purchase Delayed

Short Version: Economy forces Port of Seattle to hold off buying the $107 million corridor from BNSF:

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/archives/164833.asp

Long Version: Port of Seattle thought twice about issuing bonds to purchase the Woodinville Subdivision, mainly because of current state of the economy. In addition, the Federal Transportation Board hasn't completed its analysis of the deal. I don't think there is any indication it wouldn't go through, but given some of the notoriety the Port had last year I'd say the head honcho is being nice and conservative.

What's interesting about the above-linked article is that the P-I focuses on the bike trail angle of the transaction, rather than the potential transportation perspective that the line could become for the region. The media sees this as a bicycle resource, not a transportation resource for more than two wheels.

Not too balanced if you ask me.

Railroads and The Law Team Up for Safety at Crossings

The word "Sting" is usually associated with some seedy underworld dealings, typically a skin house or "massage" parlor. This time the word is used to describe cross-bureau operating teaming UP, BNSF, and local police to get the word out about safety at Railroad Crossings.

This is not a new subject for us her at WARail. Sadly, nine people died at crossings last year in Washington. I would love to see this go to Zero if possible, and this effort is well justified.

Blaine Station - Move It or Lose It

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According to sources in NW Washington, BNSF is expanding their track near the border with Canada. This project will required the removal or demolition of the former Great Northern Blaine Railroad Station, still standing after a long career. A proposal has been put on the table to move this station to a marina nearby, thus giving new life to the building that ushered thousands to their trains in the early days. Project cost: an estaimated $500 - $600,000. For more information on this opportunity visit Oil-Electric's blog post that expands on the linked article from Blaine.

Thanks Robert, for alerting the railfan community to this opportunity!