Great Northern SDP40 - Then and Now

©1972 Kevin Piper

A rarity even when built, EMD's SDP40 totaled only 20 units when production ceased in 1970. The main difference that set them apart was a steam generator added to each unit for passenger train use. Other than that, they were pure 60s Diesel goodness. Kevin Piper took the above photo of Burlington Northern 9855 at Cicero IL in 1972; this was one of six built for the Great Northern as #325. That same unit, now known as BNSF 6327 and seen below in a photo taken by Aaron B. Hockley, was still in service as of 2003 in Vancouver WA.

©2003 Aaron B. Hockley

In January 2008, 6327 was seen in this photo by Steve Welch pulling freight in California:

©2008 Steve Welch

That means this unit has been riding the rails for four decades. It's entirely possible that some of the crews that operate this engine are younger than that.

Talk about longevity and recycling!

Thanks to these three guys for establishing our timeline on a rare unit! Be sure to check out more railfan photos from the trio.

• Kevin's photos are HERE
  
• Aaron's photos are HERE
  
• Steve's photos are HERE

Kingdome - Then and Now

Today's Then and Now segment celebrates the mainline running past what used to be called The Concrete Cheeseburger - King County's own Kingdome Stadium. John C. Benson took the above "Then" photo in 1981 in a spot that is now occupied by an exit ramp from I-90. BN 98 (here's another picture from 1977) was an EMD SW1 built prior to 1950 for the Great Northern Railway, based on the shape of the cab. The final days of this unit are unclear, but SW1 switchers were operating on U.S. railroads well into the 1990s

The "Now" photo was taken as close to the original spot as I could get without leaving my truck (and two sons) in a dangerous spot at the off-ramp:

Qwest Field is built in the footprint of the Kingdome after it was imploded in 2000, a mere 24 years after it hosted the first Seahawks game (they lost). This is a very busy part of the BNSF mainline through Seattle; commuter trains, Amtrak, and freight all run the same tracks, with 50+ "movements" per day being common!

Easton WA - Then and Now

©1980 Blair Kooistra
Mr. Blair Kooistra is a fellow railfan who has a good eye for machinery. He admits to putting worthy effort into even the simplest of railroading photos that he uploads. His collection of photographs online is nothing short of beautiful.

Blair was also on-hand to see the final hours of the Milwaukee Road in Washington when he took this simple photo in Easton WA on March 14, 1980. After that the lines in-state were either abandoned or sold to the Burlington Northern. In this photo you will see a long line of motive power, likely with many of the engines "dead in tow" to the Milwaukee's lines east of Montana. With Easton being within 70 miles of my home, I thought it would be fun to try duplicating Blair's photo almost 28 years later.

Turns out it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.

My sons and I headed to Cabin Creek Rd. just south of downtown Easton and crossed the BNSF Mainline that still runs through. The Milwaukee Road, in this part of the state, has been replaced by the Iron Horse State Park which runs from North Bend to the Columbia River; it ran a few steps south of the BN at that time. This made Easton a true railroader's town. David and I got out of the truck with Blair's photo and started matching up landmarks. Much had changed and it didn't help that clouds were obscuring the hills to the north. As David and I were scratching our heads trying to find the right angle, to our fortune a woman was crossing the tracks and asked if we were waiting for the train. I told her what we were doing and she asked to see the photo. "I've lived in Easton all my life, and live in the oldest house in town." How cool is that? Right away she found the Tavern; it is to the right of the loco in the original photo with a centered chimney. In my photo below it has a red roof. She also showed us that the railroad crossing signs in Blair's photo were gone and that the fire station now had a new roof.

Then and Now Mission completed, even if my current-day photo lacks the sizzle of the original. But now the mystery starts. In Blair's photo it looks like the Milwaukee was running on Burlington Northern trackage at the time, based on what I saw yesterday. Could this be? Was there possibly one of the many derailments that plagued the MILW towards the end that sent these engines to BN tracks? Or did the Milwaukee in fact run in a different place that I miscalculated? That is a mystery that can be solved by someone who knows the route far better than me.

After visiting Easton, we headed to South Cle Elum for a photo shoot with a MILW bayside caboose. It was a great day following in the footsteps of The Road!

White Pass & Yukon #114 - Then and Now

Today's Then and Now segment is a bit different from previous ones, focusing this time on a locomotive project that some shops wouldn't even attempt...

The White Pass & Yukon 114 was involved in a 2006 derailment that injured three crew members and tragically killed one. When photos of the poor mangled engine were first posted on the Internet, people were shocked. "Hard to believe that there's much left worth saving..." is what one person wrote in Railroad Forums about this special engine. The entire body was crushed end to end. The cab had been pushed over to one side so badly that a huge chunk of it had to be cut off in order to transport it over the road from the Seattle docks to the Tacoma repair shop. Most large railroads would have scrapped something that had incurred this much damage, electing to pull the motor and generators in favor of a nicer replacement. But thankfully White Pass is not a large railroad. Either out of necessity or tradition, they chose to rebuild.

So what makes the 114 special? Well for starters the WP&Y runs on an unusual 3-foot Narrow Gauge track (Standard Gauge railroads place their tracks 4-feet 8 1/2 inches apart). Given that the majority of North American railroad equipment is built for Standard Gauge you can imagine that Narrow Gauge equipment is pretty hard to find, especially when you consider that much of the Narrow Gauge stuff in the world is vintage steam rather than modern diesel. Add to mix the rarity of this particular engine. The DL 535 shown here was built by Bombardier in Canada, being one of maybe four or five in the world. White Pass is a traditional railroad and probably found more benefit in having it repaired instead of searching out new equipment. Insurance paid for the repairs and the work was done here in Washington, at Coast Engine and Equipment in Tacoma.

The forum post about this engine provides back story, making the whole experience into something more than a mere rebuild. Allegations of ineffective low-priced labor, reuse of scrap-worthy metal, corner cutting in the project, and wiring issues keep the story juicy if somewhat off-base. Are the allegations true? It's not my place to surmise their validity, since I'm neither a mechanic or a railroader. Considering what CEECO had to work with coming in the door, I'd say they had their job cut out for them. Did the WP&Y get a good locomotive back? Well see for yourself....

CEECO accomplished something amazing here. We can marvel at the sharp metal work and paint that took this machine from a mangled pulp to a shining example of Narrow Gauge Goodness. Nice work CEECO! The shops in Skagway AK will apply the White Pass lettering and numbers. While some wince at the green and yellow paint scheme, I'm a huge fan of it. Finding a way to incorporate the WP&Y Thunderbird on the front would be a nice addition.

Thanks to Steve Carter for these great Before and After shots!

Under Jackson Street - Then and Now

Bikers call it "A Cage." I call it my truck, and to date it has whisked me and my sons to great railroading venues around the region. It's reliable, somewhat fuel-efficient (compare to my big block powered `59 Chevy anyway), and navigates easily around the area. But it's a cage. It's a cage to me because - at 30mph or more - I miss much of what is going on around the streets I drive. There's nothing like walking the same route I've driven, and seeing 10 times more simply because my speed is roughly 3mph instead of 30. For me, walking around downtown Seattle has opened up so much of the city's railroading history that it was simply astounding. During my stint of jury duty downtown, I focused my lunch break attention on King Street Station and the surrounding tracks/roads. I go away with a great understanding of the railroad through this area and its impact on the blocks just south of downtown.

The first picture in this post was taken in 1948 of Great Northern 1450 on the GN mainline as it is passing underneath Jackson Street. UP's Union Station is situated behind the locomotive, which was shared with the Milwaukee Road (lettering on the right side of the building). An electric trolley runs under wire along Jackson Street to the right. If you look closely in the expanded photo, you will see above the locomotive, standing on the street, a 40s era railfan watching the train...in the same exact spot that I watched several trains go by yesterday. A man on Jackson is also giving the steamer a passing glance.

Thanks to the Sound Transit train station along the mainline, citizens today are able to stand safely along the tracks underneath Jackson to watch trains, although legally I'm not able to take a photo from the same exact spot as the 1948 picture. There are chain link fences and BNSF signs that keep ethical people from breaking the law. Being an honest railfan means following the rules, even if it means you have to give up on the sweet photo op.

So for this installment I have the best possible alternatives - a picture of Union Station in the modern day, a picture of an SD40 passing under Jackson from the other direction, and a picture taken directly under Jackson. For perspective the second locomotive with the white face is in roughly the same spot as 1450 was in the first photo. Not surprisingly, the architecture of the overpass hasn't changed; it's pretty crumbly underneath, but if it was unsafe the City of Seattle would shut it down in no time. Standing near the tracks you can see the soot of railroading's decades applied to the ceiling along with passive graffiti on the pillars like "SP&S Dave."

In the 35 minutes that I hung around, two double-stack trains, one mixed freight, and a commuter train switching tracks all made movements along this stretch. Now that I have a better idea on how to use the bus around downtown, it's likely I'll be back to keep up on what's happening along this busy line!

Interbay Yard - Then and Now

This post has two pictures, each taken from nearly the same spot but 35 years apart. The area is called Interbay Yard, which is on the BNSF mainline heading north out of downtown Seattle. In these two photos one can see the development change, but the depicted industry is more or less the same right down to the grit and grime on the outside of the loco.

The first photo was taken by Robert McDonald in May 1969, of Great Northern 425. Robert took a lot of photos back in the day. The pictures he has added to his blog Oil-Electric go back to 1958 and show historic views of our past up and down the West Coast - including British Columbia and Alaska. Thankfully for us train lovers, he took those picture with quality equipment depicting locomotives and scenery that are now only memories. His photographic record, and ability to describe each one in great detail, is a treasure to everyone who loves railroading history.

Robert calls GN 425 "absolutely dingy" because of the road grime over spectacular colors, Robert chose to shoot the picture anyway not realizing the impact it would have on a world of railfans when posted on the Internet in 2007. What he captured was a real-world vision of railroading in the late 1960s, dirt and all. We can appreciate this more than a posed photo of a clean unit.

The second photo was taken by yours truly in March 2004 of a worn-out Warbonnet with stenciled "BNSF" letters on the side. I shot the picture as the crew was leaving the unit and walking away. The photo is from the same vantage point of Robert's photograph - along the east side of Gilman Ave W. You'll see that my photo is slightly to the left of the spot that Robert snapped, but you can't miss the extensive additions of buildings both at the yard and on the streets behind the engine. In the original photo you can see Standard station, which is now the site of a bank. The roads behind the GN engine are now shrouded by two-story buildings serving small businesses and art galleries. None of this is visible in the final photo because of the erector set buildings put up on-site at the yard. But you get the idea. Lots has changed in 35 years. In this post-9/11 world this viewing area is an unsung spot for railfans, far enough from the trains for safety and close enough for pictures.

Open these photos each in a separate browser window, and then toggle back and forth between them. You'll see the development of 35 years right before your eyes. It's nice to know that I had Robert's archive to use as the "Then" photo for this series.