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As the Renton Boeing plant is accessed from the Seattle Sub at Tukwila now by BNSF this report would seem to fit in this Blog.  On Wednesday 5-20-09 I had the day off work and around 1:00 PM could hear horns blowing from the south while at home.  So I headed down near Boeing’s and saw the headlight of the northbound Renton Local approaching.  They left their train in the siding and continued light power up to the switch where they backed into the Boeing plant on the former NP as they had no cars to deliver today but some to pick up.

In the Renton area this short stub track to the Boeing plant is the sole remaining section of the former Northern Pacific line in service south of Bellevue that once ran to Woodinville and Sumas out of Renton.  The NP north of here to Bellevue is out of service and the old NP south of the Boeing facility to Black River was removed years ago.  Trains have used the former Pacific Coast line from Black River to the switch here rejoining the former NP, since the old NP tracks through Renton were removed after the BN merger.  Trailing the 2258 is GP39-2 2786 which is a former Santa Fe unit. 

This is the first time I have seen two repainted units in the new image.  I got some lunch at Kidd Valley and waited for the power to return.  It soon came out with a couple of empty Boeing cars and went back to its train, switched all the cars onto the main track and then the power ran down the siding to the south end, backing onto the train to depart.  I drove to the new Cedar River bridge crossing as I had not photographed a train here since the old Pacific Coast bridge had been replaced with a new structure that the larger Boeing 737’s can pass through.  Large clouds were building and getting closer to the sun and the sun did go away as the train approached.  I figured it would be a pretty dark shot but to my surprise the cloud backed off long enough for the train to pass!  I telephoto’d the first shot pretty tight, just in case the sun did get nailed by the cloud I would at least have one nice sunlit shot.

But the sun remained out as the train moved out onto the new Cedar River bridge.  The train had the 2 Boeing cars, a tank car and four doublestack cars of garbage picked up in Tukwila earlier.  Notice the traffic on southbound I-405.  Glad I wasn’t in that mess today!   

And the “turn around” shot as the BNSF 2258 enters the Renton street running towards the depot. 

This brings back memories of seeing Milwaukee Road trains coming down this same street in the 1970’s and a 1969 photo in the local paper of the NP’s North Coast Limited detouring through Renton and out the Milwaukee when Stampede Pass was shut down after a washout.  I was hoping I might see the Renton Local today and I was not disappointed.

Last Wednesday after photographing some BNSF power at South Seattle I started north on Airport Way and looking over to my right noticed I was being passed by BNSF SD40-2 7132 also headed north.  I quickly got ahead and pulled off near Argo to photograph the train with BNSF 7132/2930/2273 up front.

The BNSF 2930 is former Union Pacific GP35 753 and was rebuilt to BN GP39E 2930 in October of 1989.

A back shot shows the train continuing north into Seattle and on to Interbay. 

With all the BNSF GE’s now on the roster, catching these older EMD’s on the mainline is really a treat.

Friday afternoon 3-6-09 while driving north to Everett I made a run by of South Seattle to see what the evening Z would have for power.  Used to seeing BNSF GEVO’s and H2 C44-9W’s I wasn’t expecting much but hoped for a Warbonnet or maybe an H1 C44-9W somewhere in the lashup.

I could see there was an H2 C44-9W at the west end of the power as I approached but it looked different from a distance.  Turned out to be the BNSF 4097 with a partially primered front end along with a gray front door.  It was unusual enough to get me to stop for some photos.  Here is the entire lashup of BNSF 4097/4817/5366/993 with a Tacoma bound stack train waiting for a crew in the distance.

A telephoto brings out the entire front end of the BNSF C44-9W.

I doubt I would have even photographed the 4097 had it not been for the primered front end.  I then took a standard roster shot of the BNSF 4097.

I walked down to the BNSF 993 at the east end of the consist and took a rear end roster photo as the sun angle was not good for a front end shot.  The H1 paint scheme without a doubt looks great on a C44-9W.  Really too bad BNSF did not stick with it.

The air conditioner cover even matches the rest of the unit!  There had been some discussion that BNSF was going to renumber these units into the 4200 and 5500 series sometime soon but that is apparently not going to happen after all.  But at least I have this shot of the 993 now just in case.

On this date 20 years ago the Seattle Sub had to deal with a lot of snow in the Seattle area.  A lot of people say it does not snow much here in March but these photos tell a different story.

On Thursday March 2, 1989 it was snowing heavily in the morning.  Work was shut down for the day so I was out photographing trains.  I was at Argo around 08:30 AM and caught southbound #693 with SD40-2’s 7098/8060/7837 slowly heading out of Argo at 08:50 AM.

I then quickly drove down to Military Road and caught the 7098 here at speed.

I checked out Stacy Street Yard next and found a couple of southbounds side by side. 

BN 6349/7039 would be heading out on train #692 later and BN 2079 would take a transfer out later in the day as well.

Before noon I was back at Argo where I photographed southbound train #91 with BN 3120/4001 at 12:00 PM.

At 1:10 PM I photographed BN 389 on a switch job on the west side of the drawbridge coming into West Seattle.

In all 12″ of snow fell on 3-2-89.  It was a pretty odd day for photographing trains! 

March 2, 2009 on the other hand was pretty tame in comparison.  A little rain, a bit of sunshine and temps in the 50’s.

Sunday morning 12-21-08 I left the house around 09:30 AM for Seattle in hopes of catching some trains in the freshly fallen snow we had gotten overnight. I stopped at Argo first waiting for something to happen but all that was going on was the manual sweeping of switches to remove all the snow. UP 669 was waiting to come out of Argo Yard to head south but was having a very long wait. Finally the guys sweeping the switches headed off for lunch so the UP 669 finally started out.

Apparently the switches that had just been swept would not throw as the 669 had to stop and hand line themselves! Here the 669 is moving south on track 3 headed for the UP yard along Airport Way.

UP 669 is an ex-MOP GP38-2 built in January 1980 as the MP 2169. All this action wore me out (sarcasm) so I decided to head south towards Auburn in hopes of seeing some real trains! I drove over to Renton and headed south on Highway 167 and heard the dispatcher telling a local crew at Auburn there was a northbound coming and to clear up in the yard. So I got off at Kent and drove over to the old depot to wait on what it might be. As I sat in the truck I watched as a pretty good snow squall was moving through the area. I could soon hear horns well off to the south so I headed over to the grade crossing north of the depot and heard the train blow for more crossings before seeing the headlight come over the horizon. Snow was still coming down as the train blew by at 12:54 PM.

Power was BNSF 7793/969/5339 and as the last car passed I took this going away shot. Lots of swirling snow.

With the train by I took this photo of the Kent depot.

I believe it was built by the NP but am not sure when the last time a passenger train actually stopped at the old depot.

As I headed towards Auburn I could hear the train that just passed calling Stacy St yard identifying themselves as the M-VAWEVE. Not much was happening at Auburn either. A local with units 2087/2900 were ready to leave Auburn and head back to Tacoma so I caught them just north of the Sounder station passing by after crossing over.

I could hear a couple of southbounds coming but they were moving rather slow as all the switches were frozen up to the north. Auto traffic in Auburn was rather light so I walked over to Main Street and took a photo looking east in town. Kind of Christmas looking I thought!

Back at the tracks I watched as the first southbound came up to the crossovers and stopped. They had to crossover and head into the yard but the switches were frozen and someone showed up to work on clearing it out. I could also hear a second southbound coming up behind the first. About 30 minutes later I decided it was time to head for home but I drove up C street to see what the southbound power was. It was just that. Light power. Two GE’s. Behind it the second train was more light power also waiting to head into the yard. Looks like I made the right call not waiting around to see light power! Lots of snow had fallen but just one nice looking freight train all day. I am sure this won’t be the last snow we see this winter though.

I managed to get some photos this past week with all the snow that has been falling in Western Washington.

During a heavy snow that came down on Thursday 12-18-08 I sat down by Horton St in the south part of Seattle hoping for a train to go by. Naturally there was no action but I did get a photo of the Rabanco switcher BNSF 2876. This GP39M was built as SP GP35 6617 which made me wonder if it had seen some some of the heavy snows over Donner Pass years back when it was an SP unit.

Nothing else going on so I headed down to Argo and photographed the UP 7644 on the wye pocket.

Then on Saturday 12-20-08 I had to made a delivery up to Everett in the early morning and after finishing I got my truck and headed back down to Horton St as there was a bit of sunshine peeking thru along with some very cold temperatures. Not much was going on with the exception of a northbound BNSF coal train passing by at 10:11 AM with BNSF 5788/9648 up front and DPU’s 9677/8819 on the rear.

I was a bit surprised Amtrak #11 wasn’t by yet but the southbound signals were all red telling me nothing else was coming south for awhile. I then headed down towards Auburn to get some lunch and see how much snow was down that way. I saw no other trains on the Seattle Sub but did catch an eastbound on the Stampede Sub leaving Auburn.

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Monday afternoon 11-17-08 I was eating lunch in Seattle and saw a southbound Herzog train with a BNSF unit at each end. It was sunny but the sun angle poor so I did not get a photo of it. But as I was finished eating I headed down to Argo to see if I could catch it again in better light. I was lucky. It was indeed slowing to a stop waiting on another train.

A northbound UP train was entering their yard from Main 2. I noticed there was a single unit on the head end. As the rear of the doublestack train came into view I noticed another UP unit in DPU mode. Interesting. I was up on the Albro Place S overpass and photographed the UP 8309 as it slowly rolled away from my camera.

Note the frame stripe is a combination of yellow and red. Guess some of the yellow came off showing the red stripe underneath.

After it was in the clear the Herzog train continued south. BNSF 2914 was in the lead.

I checked on the heritage of the BNSF 2914 and see it is ex-BN 2532, a former GP35 built as CB&Q 986.

Bringing up the rear was BNSF 2884, also a rebuilt BN GP35. This one came from the BN 2523 built as the Great Northern 3040. Note the power unit on the Herzog train. Kind of a GP38 from the looks of the fans on the roof.

Kind of a nice distraction from the normal stuff seen along the Seattle Sub.

On the cloudy, gray (and sometimes wet)  afternoon of 11-12-08 I was driving up to the Seattle Post Office and noticed a northbound Amtrak movement near Spokane Street with a non Amtrak unit leading on what looked like the Empire Builder.  I was guessing it had just been turned on the coach wye.  Could not tell what was leading though because traffic was bad and I could not catch up to it.

Still I was curious enough to check on it after leaving the Post Office.  I headed to Safeco Field and the overpass at Edgar Martinez Dr S where I noticed the train stopped up by the depot and slowly backing towards the washrack.  That non-Amtrak unit was a BNSF H1 B40-8.  As I waited for the train to pass under the bridge I could hear the horns of a northbound train and could see a BNSF doublestack train coming.

After the Amtrak train cleared the overpass I photographed BNSF 8635/ATK 159/204 on the Empire Builder as it backed through the washrack.

A closer view of the power.

I guess a bonus for the BNSF was their B40-8 getting a free wash.

Here the BNSF 8635 is getting a bath.  Wonder when the last time this unit was washed?

The Builder then started ahead and I photographed the much cleaner BNSF B40-8.

I have seen a number of different BNSF locomotives “borrowed” for Amtrak service but this is the first time I have seen a B40-8 leading Amtrak.  

I thought it looked kind of neat leading!  After clearing the switch the train began backing up again towards the yard and I continued on my way.  It looked like #8 was going to be leaving Seattle tonight with the BNSF 8635 leading.

Thursday Oct. 23, 2008 was a beautiful fall day in the Seattle area.  Driving south towards South Seattle on Airport Way I noticed a northbound coming out of the South Seattle Yard with a mixture of TOFC and double stacks.  The sun angle for northbounds was pretty harsh so I moved back north to the Albro Place overpass for a better overhead view.  The tran approached at speed with NS 9486/SOO 6042/CEFX 6020 upfront.

I then got a back shot showing the SOO and the former SOO SD60’s on the train.  This is the first time I have ever seen a SOO Line unit and a “former” SOO Line unit together on the same train, and on a BNSF train.  What were the odds? 

As it was going by I noticed the headlight of a southbound coming so I got back in the car and headed down to South Seattle again for a shot with some Fall color.  The train was a BNSF V-train with units 4498/4360/7452 up front.  It stopped right where I was going to take my photos to set out a few cars on the head end.

Very colorful trees along this part of Airport Way!

Satisfied with these photos I continued on my way.

While driving north towards Everett yesterday afternoon I came upon a BNSF northbound at South Seattle making a setout of a few doublestack cars.  The power was a bit different and colorful as I stopped to take a few photos.  A spot opened up in the overcast skies brightening up the scene.

Here BNSF 4301/CEFX 3127/ BNSF 6511 are making their setout at South Seattle 10-9-08.

A photo of the power that drew my attention.

CEFX 3127 is ex-SP SD45R 7458 and was built as the SP 8821 in August of 1966.  Note what is left of the rear light package on the unit helping to identify it as ex-SP.

Trailing is BNSF 6511, an SD45-2 built as the ATSF 5674 June of 1973 and later rebuilt to the ATSF 5863. 

Nice to see a pair of SD45 types working today on the Seattle Sub.