train-hoppers@nw.com
chucho seco <chuchitoseco@yahoo.com>
Sun, 29 May 2005 02:49:33 -0700 (PDT)
recent train story from Stampede Pass, Washington
<20050529094933.83021.qmail@web32102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
train-hoppers@nw.com
This is from two weekends ago, May 14-15 2005.
This past weekend a friend and myself set out to cross
the Stampede Pass between Ellensburg and Seattle via
Auburn, Washington. This is the former Northern
Pacific line, now BNSF, known for its steep grades and
beautiful scenery. It was resurrected in the
mid-1990's after being mothballed for almost 15 years.
This line is unique because, unlike the other train
lines crossing the Cascades, it is not paralleled by a
major highway.
It is quite removed from everything, in the primeval
splendor of the green washington forests.
Between my friend and I, we have hopped trains all
around the Puget Sound and Western Washington. But the
Stampede Pass is a tough prospect: BNSF only sends a
train or two a day over the pass in either direction,
usually preferring to send general manifests east via
the Columbia River and intermodals over Stevens Pass.
(All trains over the Stampede are GM.) In Seattle, an
easy way to spot the outgoing Stampede Pass train is
its distributed power (DP) arrangement: usually there
are 3 engines on the point and 2 in the middle, to
help going over the steep pass. However, these trains
are elusive. We believed one was scheduled to leave in
the middle afternoon so last Thursday we went to the
Balmer (Interbay) train yard in Seattle to try to
catch one. For our weekend excursion, we planned to
ride the train to Yakima and then hike the Yakima Rim
Skyline Trail through the mountains to Ellensburg
(crew-change) to catch a train back to Seattle.
After walking around Balmer Yard and seeing nothing of
interest, I went and spoke to the yardmaster, who
informed me that it has been two weeks since they sent
a DP train out of that yard. He said that they have
been "short on power" and so they were sending stuff
to Pasco "around the loop" (along the Columbia River
via Vancouver) instead of via the Stampede.
Since I was posing as a photo-taker and not a train
hopper, i had to hold my cards to my chest, and took
what information he gave me. He said that sometimes
trains coming out of Everett were slated as DP over
the stampede pass but are often rerouted around the
loop. There was one planned for Stampede the next day
but he thought this would be rerouted as well.
Disappointed, we decided instead to try to catch a
train over Stevens Pass to Wenatchee, then hitch hike
to our destination of Yakima. All night we missed
trains, so the next morning we employed Plan C. We
took a Metro Bus (Route 209) to the town of North
Bend, located in the sprawled foothills of the
Cascades. From there, we hitchhiked over the pass
directly to Selah, near Yakima, and were on our
trailhead by 5 pm. A map of this area is found here:
http://www.bentler.us/eastern-washington/recreation/wenas-wildife-area.aspx
Our trail led us up onto the Yakima Ridge, where we
could look down into the steep bedrock valley of the
Yakima River. This is the dry east side of the
mountains, where soils are thin and woody plants
usually only exist in the gullies, except for the
dry-hardy Artemesia sage brush. From a distance the
scape looks barren and desertlike, but up close we
enjoyed awesome flower displays. From the ridge we
could monitor the activity on the Stampede train line
between Ellensburg and Yakima, which runs along the
valley wall just above the river. That night, we
camped at a place known as Rosa, within view of the
tracks and the river.
Over the less than 24 hours we spent on the hike, we
saw more trains than expected. We saw three east
bounds: all empty unit grain trains with 3 engines on
the point, no distributed power. This suggested that
more stuff goes over the Pass than we inferred from
the yardmaster. We also saw a couple west bounds, only
one of them with DP. These were also hopper cars and
empty lumber racks headed for Canada.
A picture of a train we saw from the ridge can be seen
here:
http://www.kehoe.org/seattletours/skyline/yakimatrain.jpg
One of these trains went west Saturday evening as we
were headed down out of the hills, still a couple
hours from the highway. We thought we had missed our
trip to Seattle for the day.
We descended out of the hills and hitch hiked to
Ellensburg along the canyon highway. We were dropped
downtown and then headed for the abandoned Northern
Pacific passenger rail station. BNSF has facilities
next door and we assumed this would be the crew change
point. We walked around looking for a place to camp
out, finding a potential good spot behind the
Goodwill. However, we decided to walk the tracks a bit
more, and went north past the train station up around
the slight bend in the tracks. (north bound trains in
ellensburg are westbound over the pass).
We saw a string of cars on the other side of the yard,
north of the 5th Ave grade crossing, and paid them no
mind, but later upon closer inspection, we found that
there was a Freddy on the end. My friend realized that
it was the same train that we had watched from the
ridge 5 hours ago -- it waited for us! Luckily for us
there was a long lay over in Ellensburg, for we might
have easily waited 12 hours for another chance.
After a couple hours, the new crew was on the train,
the signal up ahead turned green, the air brakes came
on, and we leapt on a nearby grainer, upholstered with
some boards from an old chicken coop.
The trip back to Seattle took about 5 hours. It was
relatively warm through the pass and we spent a good
amount of the trip wearing shorts. Night fell as we
headed up into the hills and it soon was pitch black.
The 2-mile Stampede tunnel is an interesting relic,
BNSF has installed new lighting all along the ceiling,
which reveals boulder-size pockmarked holes and water
damage all over the ceiling.
Despite my excitement, I quickly fell asleep to the
rhythm of the train after we passed through the
Tunnel. My friend stayed up the whole time, watching
into the darkness. En route, we passed two more
eastbounds, both empty unit grain trains again without
DP.
When we came to the waterfront of Seattle the train
slowed and stopped long enough for us to bail. We
headed up the hill to a 24-hour diner overrun with
drunks coming out of the bars. As we sat inside
munching our carbs and protein, a heavy rain began to
soak the Seattle night. We got drenched on the way
home, but by that time it didn't matter. From
downtown, we caught the 3:30 AM Night Owl bus, which
dropped us off a couple of blocks from our houses on
the hill. END
Postscript
After this trip we have the following observations:
1. stampede pass is not currently in favor as a route
for getting goods to Pasco, Spokane, and points east
2. not all trains leaving seattle over the stampede
pass will have distributed power, esp if they are
empty. if they have canadian lumber they probably need
the extra units. With the current shortage of BNSF
power, it seems that Stampede is used mostly to run
empties.
3. what we see crossing the pass are basically lumber
and hopper cars with a few tank cars. loaded lumber
cars come from canada and go back empty; grain comes
from the east to the grain terminal at the port of
seattle; and empty grainers go east. these are only
generalizations.
4. trains going over the stampede also originate in
tacoma and everett (and canadian points north), not
just seattle. the ones from everett and canada must
pass through seattle (balmer) but the ones from tacoma
don’t. A southbound unit grain train spotted in
seattle with 3 or four units on front seems to have a
good chance of heading east at Auburn to go over
stampede.
5. the Y at Auburn has been realigned and it appears
that trains go faster through the bend than they used
to. i hopped out of Auburn to go over the pass in year
2000 before the realignment but it seems like thats
not possible now.
6. trains might drop off and pick up extra units as
they come from or go over the pass. but in some cases
they keep the slave power all the way to
Pasco/TriCities.
7. The Stampede line uses Track Warrant Control (TWC)
which means that mainline train instructions are
relayed to crews over the radio. There is an internet
relay based out of Ellensburg where you can hear
these, at http://www.railroadradio.net/. We, however,
have not been able to extract any real useful
information from this.
we are fascinated with the stampede pass route and if
you live in this area, you should be too. all hands to
the mast in figuring out this mysterious and
infrequently-traveled stretch of track.
cheers
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