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As it was a clear and sunny morning, Saturday May 17, 2008 I headed for Tacoma, WA to catch a few trains in the morning before the heat set in for the afternoon.  It was supposed to be in the upper 80′s later today.

Coming into Tacoma I saw the tail end of a northbound BNSF grain train at Reservation.  I got off I-5 and saw the rear end of a BNSF garbage train headed south.  The BNSF PASTAC was at 21st Street waiting for the Garbage train to clear before entering the yard.  I got stuck in some bad traffic at the grade crossing and could see the PASTAC was already leaving 21st Street headed my way.  Stuck in the Blazer as the train passed my heart sank I saw the unit trailing the two lead BNSF GE’s was the MRL 52 headed for CEECO.  Perfect sunlight all around except for where I was stopped in traffic with a building casting a shadow across the tracks and not a thing I could do as it passed by.

I continued on south to the overpass near the Temco grain facility hoping there would be a northbound behind the TACPAS.  I was a bit surprised there were no grain cars here at all.  But my hunch was correct.  At 0907 a headlight appeared and a northbound UP Intermodal led by 7791/4526/4327 passed by. 

SD70M 4526 is noteworthy as it is one of the first three regular SD70M’s to get the flag on the side.  Getting back in the truck after it was gone I heard a meet happening up at Ruston.  Guess that BNSF Garbage train hadn’t gotten very far but I knew I had another northbound coming.  I wanted to get a photo showing the derelict TEMCO SW1200 219 (ex BN 219, NP 160) and there was an opening at a gate in the fence large enough to fit my camera through.  Nice!  UP M-HKSE with units 4254/9387/5009 was the northbound and I photographed it at 0924 at the overpass where I photographed the earlier UP Intermodal.

The back shot was also nice as it showed the old NP headquarters up on the hill.  It is that lighter colored building.  I climbed up on the concrete barrier for this shot over the fence.

It was beginning to get warm so I decided to start heading north towards home.  I made a stop at Auburn first hoping for a southbound BNSF train.  After sitting about 45 minutes a headlight appeared and I got my southbound.  A BNSF merchandise train with units 5473/4117/879. 

After the train passed by at 1053 I headed on home.  Not too bad of a morning even if I couldn’t photograph that MRL SW1500 on the TACPAS.  Getting the UP train passing the even older SW1200 kind of made up for it.