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!

Photo - UP Georgetown Lo-Fidelity

Ever heard of a Holga? I hadn't until about two years ago, when the world of Lomography was introduced to me merely by chance when searching for something on Amazon.com. Since I don't want to duplicate posts, read my personal blog if you want to know more about Holgas:

http://www.clarkblog.net/2009/06/foo-photo-my-first-holga-roll.html

Anyway, the above photo was one from the first roll of film I shot with a Holga. After he viewed the resulting slide show, one of the comments I got from a high school friend was:

"I liked the slide show, all very cool pics, the train pics almost look depression era, except the locomotive is a bit too new."

If the Holga does anything well, it's paying homage to The Depression! It's a great camera to release yourself from the world of editing your shots and placing you smack dab in the world of just taking pictures. What freedom!

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!

News - One Post Leads To Another

Idaho & Montana getting new passenger stations and service?

Occasionally when I'm researching railroad news that impacts the Northwest, I'll get more than I asked for. And now, the news...

Bonner County Daily Bee reported that the Amtrak Station in Sandpoint ID might be replaced by another depot in a different location. While reading the article online, my eyes happened to catch a small phrase that led to a bigger discovery:

“We’re going to study and produce a report that looks at the possibilities, and the costs and opportunities of restoring the North Coast Hiawatha service,” he said."

What?? That opened me up to yet another news story, which was made possible by stimulus money pointed straight at Amtrak. The carrier - in the face of ever-increasing rail passengers - is looking into reinstating the North Coast Hiawatha to run from Chicago, along the southern part of Montana, and on its way to Seattle. The route over Northern Pacific trackage was discontinued 30 years ago, which took many of Montana's major cities off the passenger service map. What's surprising - and a bit pathetic - is the NCH was discontinued because it fell below 150 passengers per mile - coming in at 149.

USA Today has this article about the potential route addition.

Will the North Coast Hiawatha once again run into King Street Station? Maybe not, because Seattle is well served by both the Empire Builder and the Coast Starlight (along with the Cascades and regional Sound Transit routes). But the possibility of a newer NCH terminating in Spokane or Sandpoint is very real, allowing those passengers to simply connect with the Empire if they are coming out to "The Coast."



View North Coast Hiawatha Proposed Route in a Google map

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!