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    Rail Scene 2019
    Rail Scene 2019
    Rail Scene 2019
    Ebook232 pages1 hour

    Rail Scene 2019

    By Bob Campbell

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    About this ebook

    Vancouver Center in Southwest Washington provides many of the nearly two hundred high resolution pictures contained in this collection of railroading and railways in the year 2019; but there's much more. While a bit BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) heavy, there's still lots of Union Pacific (UP), PNWR, CBRW, and other registries and liveries filling out this book. Everything from the various rail lines caught on digital film in the Pacific Northwest, to cool multi-unit maneuvers in Connell over in Eastern Washington, plus the Grain Train coming out of the breadbasket of Washington and the Columbia Basin Railroad (CBRW) making a new freight handling drop-and-go on BNSF Class I rail. Plus lingering Geeps (GP series of train engines) and our usual power identification and confusion chapters.
    In fact, everywhere you look in this book is a train (mostly). Along with beloved rants and wails you've come to expect in the Long - Long - Short . Long - series of books. Although, like all our books, this collection easily stands on its own (Excuse me? Leaning against the wall wheezing is *still* standing in my book.)

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBob Campbell
    Release dateJan 20, 2020
    ISBN9780463552223
    Rail Scene 2019
    Author

    Bob Campbell

    The short of it: over-educated, unemployed, and annoying with a camera. Quite possibly a dangerous combination.The long of it:I've been snapping pictures for over a quarter-of-a-century on equipment ranging from a Pentax k1000 to Canon SX700hs - but nothing fancier. In fact, after they retired my Kodachrome 64 film, I hung up the 'real cameras' and settled for "digital pocket snappers." It seems ninety percent of the challenge to taking pictures is to remember your camera (would seem obvious, wouldn't it? But look around at the folks with large, fancy cameras - no wonder they claim the phone-based lens will be the death of real photography). So I do my part and pack it almost everywhere.I was a latecomer to photography, though, so I had time to grow up in many different parts of the country with my formative stage in the South, but junior high and onward in the Pacific Northwest. The last set of initials after my name tacked on by the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine - making the 'highest degree attained' line of the survey read Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.I still live in the state of Washington with my lovely wife of over two decades who continues to be an invaluable accomplice. For any hazard I manage to avoid, our son does his best to ensure we'll see an early grave.Having spent a little time teaching, I've grown to miss a captive audience to inflict my photography upon, so thank you Smashwords for providing me a forum for dispersing my imagery pain to be loosed upon the world.

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      Book preview

      Rail Scene 2019 - Bob Campbell

      Introduction

      Who's this book for? Obviously you. Why else would an intelligent, charming, wonderful person like you pick this book up and start reading? Glance around; do you see any other people of such high qualities reading this same e-book? No? Great - we've established you're the most intelligent, charming, and wonderful person in the vicinity, thus read on, my exceptional guest, and partake of the railway goodness. And smile at the other lesser humans and sub-humans around you; take pity upon their ignorant plight not understanding the greatness of trains, railroads, and the call of the steel rail. (BNSF 8468 (SD70ACe) heading up a threesome accelerating at the end of Vancouver Center's north ladder yard area on the east-most side of Burlington Northern - Santa Fe's double-track main that runs through the wet (west) side of Washington, July 6, 2019, Vancouver, WA. Behind her is over a mile of open hoppers - actually gondolas, as they no longer have lower hatches (gates) to empty the contents, instead just being 'dumped' like a child would empty a toy car at the destination rotating around the coupler - with Wyoming-Montana-Dakota 'cleaner burning' coal as seen below...)

      Well, fine, actually this book is for folks wondering what they missed in the year 2019 up in our corner of the world, a section of the Pacific Northwest along the Columbia River in the United States of America. (BNSF 8468 (SD70ACe) - BNSF 9266 (SD70ACe) - BNSF 9972 (SD70MAC) northbound coal drag cruising past SPU (Single Pusher Unit) UP 7077 (AC4460CW) on southbound auto-rack duty (hauling Tacoma's off-loaded import (and foreign assembled domestic) cars south, July 6, 2019, Vancouver, WA. Locally, here in Vancouver, hidden in the distance along the Columbia River behind the large trees on the right of the frame, is our local major auto import dock: Subaru of America, which disgorges thousands of vehicles onto US soil right here in Vancouver to make their way across North America.))

      I've used collections like this in my own virtual vacations, but often most useful for looking back and trying to recall what the world was like. Which with the rapid progress in trade situations and movement of freight (and the occasional moving of human and/or critter), seems to change far too often. About like the endangered at-grade crossing calls of trains in the wild. Pretty soon folks won't have a clue about this book's series name: Long - Long - Short . Long - because we'll be facing all silent crossings. (BNSF 7107 (ES44C4) silently leading her mile of freight quietly into the north at-grade crossing in Connell, No Train Horn yellow sign replacing the double-call of previous years needed to get through town and the two signals, leaving the year 2019 behind her, December 29, 2019, Connell, WA.)

      Until the trains are gone as well, I hope my series of books gives not just a sliver of history in time, possibly even a nostalgic look back at the 'quaint' power and rolling stock we consider every day, but a reference for armchair historians and railroad modelers to come. When our history we're living today is the wouldn't it have been cool to have lived during a time when train engines made noise? (Think I'm kidding? For such giant beasts, the modern consist can show up practically right on top of the only partially aware individual before the realization millions of tons of steel is here and moving at an appreciable speed. Railway associated human strikes (like airplane bird strikes) have reached record levels in my home state of Washington. And it's not all due to smart-phones (dumb people) and too-loud music. If you haven't done it lately, hang out near the tracks and listen to the difference between modern power and even just a decade or three ago noises.) (NS 4068 (AC44C6M) with DC to AC conversion noted on the side of the cab notifying even the common folk the passing of an era that the motorized trucks below sport the newer, more efficient power-to-rail alternating current version of electric motor (not to talk down to anyone, but modern diesels are actually electric vehicles utilizing diesel fuel to power the generators on board to put wattage down to the electric engines contained down in the six-wheeled trucks on either end of the train engine), November 11, 2019, holding in a quiet chortle in the power-in-waiting holding tracks behind the middle ladder yard / RIP (Repair In Place) sheds, ready for duty, in Vancouver, WA.)

      Of course, if you don't have ready access to rails, at least I hope this book can give you a visual appreciation for the world out there. (BNSF 5333 (C44-9W) - BNSF 4723 (C44-9W) twin power at the front of a southbound garbage scow (double-stack containers filled with trash / refuse / unused recycled material - because very little of what goes into your recycling bin ever makes it to post-consumer recycling to become the next piece of trash, contrary to what everyone would like to believe: at least under current economic models, and especially with the Pacific Rim countries in Asia no longer taking recycled material as they did in the past. I wish I were joking.) breaking into the late afternoon - early evening sun, June 8, 2019, in Connell, WA, rounding the far north corner on approach to Connell proper and the first gravel ballast of the nearly abandoned Connell ladder yard: another victim to progress.) (For a happier, less-ranting side note, supposedly BNSF 4723 is included in the MS-Train Simulator computer program, but I can't verify it by my own hand - and funny as it seems, the picture was chosen with the text written before this was pointed out. Yeah, sure, I meant to specifically select this shot to go with the prose because of the possible armchair conductor / brakeman / engineer angle.)

      - - - -

      : Table of Contents :

      The Year 2019 in Review

      The world on rail experienced a number of shifts and shimmies in 2019. Up our direction, the local international ocean port in Portland had nearly all container traffic shifted (now officially) from the Union Pacific (UP) served docks to the more industrial friendly Puget Sound area to the north in Tacoma and Seattle on BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) home territory. Although partway through the year, a trade war with China and multiple world-less-friendly trade disagreements brought our burgeoning rail traffic to a crawl several times. And lingered for the remaining portion of the year.(BNSF 2869 (GP39-2) working the middle and southern ladder yards on the other side of Mill Plain / Padden Parkway overpass visible under the Vancouver Center - Amtrak Station signal tree showing it's ready to receive a northbound (most likely Amtrak - running late - to permit it immediate platform access, then depart through the open Green switch onto the left (west) north-south BNSF mainline toward Olympia-Seattle/Tacoma) in late afternoon/evening fading light, March 31, 2019, Vancouver, WA, looking north from the end of the station platform.)

      Of course, this marked drop in trains to see was accompanied by one of the driest and best weather patterns for potentially observing trains in memory. (BNSF 4273 (ES44C4) middle unit on a northbound triple-header preparing to duck (long nose / butt-first) under the 39th Street over-pass, below blazing late winter / early spring sun, March 3, 2019, Vancouver, WA at the north end of Vancouver Center's middle ladder yard on the double-track mains, empty west main and passing lane in the foreground. As a side note, if you look closely on the left top of the steps leading to the nose platform, the F stamped on the unit denotes Front - because way-back-when, certain railroads ran their power long-nose first, so the front on those lines wasn't the stubby nose on the

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