Rail and Train 2022

By Bob Campbell

A fun filled journey (or at least a nauseating side trip) stuffed with pumpkin orange BNSF power units (along with the various permutations that came together to make the huge Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate rail superpower) around the southeastern quadrant in the state of Washington; along with side excursions to BNSF Vancouver Center and Amtrak station, a couple trips along the Columbia River Gorge, and even up to Spokane. Plus multiple visits to the sprawling metropolis of Connell featuring towering (low rolling) sage steppes.
Special sections cover everything from the little pieces of history in Pasco, WA to the orphan train impact on Deanville, Texas after the Texas A&M refurbishment of that local depot down South. Plus the two stations in Connell (we told you it was a metropolis.) Even the Hanford B Reactor from the Manhattan Project makes an appearance with specialized uranium transport freight car and the infamous pink locomotive (and less famous orange version.)
Educational reviews of the main locomotive power types, Class I railways caught on Pacific Northwest rails... plus news and events from 2022: rail traffic impacts of the Ukrainian invasion by Russia, threatened rail worker strikes, and even a major merger / acquisition cutting down the railroad livery landscape possibly by yet one more major player in North America. Along with tons of lovely little tidbits and editorial comments concerning less major news developments - like the mystical "We need to tear down the dams in Washington to save the salmon! Oh, and we just blew up our last coal fueled electrical power generating plant this month that supplied 15% of our power to Portland... but no worries! We'll make up for it with hydroelectric power by putting in new dams."
There's even virtual vacations, little drops of odd, ATSF Centennial Livery revived, and tons of "hidden" bonus pictures. All make for hours of entertainment (if not days... maybe even years if you happen to be a really slow reader.)
Perfect for the rail fan, train buff, model railroader looking for some authentic views from the Pacific Northwest as we approach the quarter century mark, or cubicle convict trying to look like you're not wasting time while staring at a computer screen (but you completely are) while waiting on quitting time.
Still on the fence? How about a tax deduction! Yes, there's even stock and investing advice within the covers of this book. So keep your receipt after you purchase it and deduct the cost from your taxes! (Although please keep in mind, financial advice is usually worth what you pay for it. And look on the bright side! If this screws you up and you go to prison for tax evasion because of any of this uneducated tax advice, you'll have more time to read this book (and others!) during your time "incarcerated." - Yes, always have your loved ones use that word, because nobody truly listens after they ask the question, "Hey, what happened to your husband? We haven't seen him for a while." - answer: "Oh, he's incarcerated" or "He's doing good! He's doing a little incarceration." Say it out loud in a conversation with conviction (ha! Get the joke?) and nobody questions it, hearing "he's in Carseration" - and they don't want to look like a fool not knowing where Carseration is located, so just pass right over it. Ta da! For this amazing piece of advice, I think you owe me at least the effort of purchasing one of my books. Trust me! If you can't trust a random, non-licensed tax advisor and self-proclaimed financial guru willing to give you bad advice, who can you trust?)
So climb aboard, toot the horn (or at least toot your own horn for being smart enough to get a copy of this book), and enjoy the year of 2022 in trains.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Campbell
• Release date: Jan 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215598474

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.

Book preview

Warning:

That Shh! A train came through here... see? There's the tracks. joke might be true; but it's also false - because sooner or later, another train will likely come by on those same tracks. So don't be the statistic-fulfilling idiot that wins a Darwin Award (given out posthumously to those having done seriously stupid stuff resulting in death, and thus being removed from the gene pool): stay off the tracks, use your zoom lens if you're out taking pictures of trains, and stay alive to shoot another day. The modern, multi-million pound monsters that run around on those steel rails are incredibly quiet for their size; coupled with welded rail, concrete sleepers (railroad ties), and the slightest breeze - along with the encroaching Quiet Zone / No Train Horn crossings - often give the railroad aficionado minimal, if any, warning of their approach. Don't trespass on railroad property and don't stand on the tracks while taking part in your own training while out snapping pictures. (Signs of happiness and sadness all on the same post. W is the indication for the approaching locomotive to start the mandated Department of Transportation Whistle call for at-grade automobile crossings: the living heritage Long - Long - Short . Long - sounding of the train horn; at least for some of us, who still remember awakening to the all is well sounds from slumber as the approaching train rumbling in the darkness sounds off down the hill from the grandparent's home. QZ indicating the sadness that is modern life and encroachment upon the rails by surrounding homes and people unaware they've moved into the neighborhood of a living, breathing, and hopefully still healthy rail system... where to keep people and property safe, the trains try to make noise. Until quieted and placed into a Quiet Zone where the whistle / train horn is not supposed to be used... or the railroad company will get irate phone calls from the people putting homes near the pre-existing train tracks complaining about the noise. The '2' just indicates there's two at-grade crossings in a row and only blocks apart. July 31, 2022, Connell, WA at the southern approach to the first at grade crossing around the corner immediately to the north.)

Basic Long - Long - Short . Long - Primer:

A brief, albeit potentially important, note about how this book works: you'll have noted in the paragraph above this one - in the safety warning paragraph - that last parenthetic ( ) bit about the picture, was completely unrelated to the warning text. That's because it was completely unrelated. In fact, the stuff in the parenthesis was written months earlier than the rest; about like all the other paragraphs and bits in this book. In essence, you're seeing two different books in the same write-up below each picture: the first narrative accumulation of for a book-style presentation of sentences, which is followed by the actual image notes, jotted down soon after the picture was taken with whatever appropriate (or often inappropriate) observations were made at that point in history. While you're going through this book, feel free to read or ignore whatever you like after each picture; just know if you want the lowdown on registry, date, and location of the shot, it'll be in the parenthesis after each picture. (AMTK 159 approaching somewhat slowly over the last few yards of elevated track on the Columbia River Bridge against PNWR local freight consist DWC 627038 bulkhead flat car May 26, 2022, Vancouver, WA... where after an hour of almost nothing happening, there's a southbound Amtrak Cascades coming in directly behind me, the Chicago Overland headlights are here in the picture, the PNWR local northbound to north BNSF yard interchange to the right, and a westbound-to-southbound BNSF mixed freight holding to the left and around the corner of the wye - which is blocking the loading platform's near tracks for the Overland; and we won't discuss the just departed westbound-to-southbound BNSF auto-rack return route headed to the Toyota / Honda / etc. (everything but Subaru - which is actually just west of here in Vancouver) unloading docks / port in North Portland (located to the west of the Portland International Raceway - which was always funny driving past the race track to see the giant automobile-ships disgorging thousands of cars onto US soil... well, until they put up various security gates and other items on the docks. Which is possibly for the better, considering that at one point back in 1986, after a wrong turn, resulted in my driving up toward the off-loading ramp of one such ship down there in the Northwest Industrial District... back in the time when the security dude merely had a laugh and just told us not to drive all the way onto the ship when turning around. (Which would've caused more consternation if I would've realized that on the other side of the ramp was actually considered foreign soil on the ship, thus I would've needed a passport to get back into our country and off the ramp.) Yes. That much activity.)

Whines, Moans, Groans, and Grovels

Conflict of Interest: In the name of open disclosure, please note that I do hold some shares of stock (publicly traded equities) in the following companies associated with topics in this book (because it used to be fun to get the annual reports for inside details about the trains, along with associated pictures; at least before the internet and 'paperless' ruined all the fun): UPN (Union Pacific Corporation), NSC (Norfolk Southern Company), GATX (GATX Corporation (formerly General American Train Car)), WAB (Westinghouse Airbrake Technology / WABTech - new owners of the General Electric brand of diesel electric locomotives, along with several mergers and acquisitions, several rail line monitoring subsidiaries (like the recent 2022 purchase from Trimble (TRMB) the automated inspection (rail cars / rolling stock) / safety systems; added to WAB's obvious Ya gotta be able to stop the trains somehow brakes)... and my favorite conflict of interest, SNE / SONY: Sony, makers of the camera I love to hate: because Canon won't / hasn't released a new pocket camera since 2018, dammit all! Thus you have been forewarned: I hold a few shares of each of these. Nothing like having the right to complain each year during the proxy voting on various corporate officers (Yes, Sony, each and every one of you corporate putzes gets a Withhold not a 'For' vote cast for the various board members from me (sure my piddling few shares mean nothing, but it makes me feel better... and I have yet to ever vote FOR the board of directors' bonus pay or other incentives. (Image: Sony? You suck. - Yes, all up-and-down the Columbia River Gorge I thought I was taking cool pictures to share with my wonderful readers. Unfortunately, for a significant portion of the trip, my Sony DSC-HX80 camera (full details given on make-and-model: if I can save anyone else the pain and misery I've suffered through my one-and-only-and-never-to-be-repeated-again Sony camera purchase, I hope to do so, stock price be damned.) - said Sony camera and I were not on speaking terms. For example, this otherwise very nice shot and classic Columbia River railroading view is a complete blur... because the Sony insisted on refusing to focus. From the best that I can tell, it kept insisting a large number of my shots were all just a couple feet in front of me - automatically focusing in the three to eight feet range. Which, obviously, I wouldn't be that close to the trains until we got to BNSF Vancouver Center where I'd be spitting distance to the rail traffic. Which means I give to you a hearty, Sony: you suck award. Thank you for your lack of support. Oh, sorry, what I meant to say was, If you can make out the train in this blurry mess, it's UP 2565 on point for a covered hopper unit train cruising westbound near Philippi Canyon, Oregon, May 26, 2022, through the Columbia River Gorge.)

: Table of Contents :

Introduction

Year in Trains

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

Hanford B Reactor

November

December

Power Identification

Hump Yard (Pasco, WA)

Little Pieces of History (Pasco)

News of Note

Livery Round-Up

BNSF

Class I

Passenger

Other / Smaller Railroads

Virtual Vacation:

Columbia River Gorge

Spokane, WA

Vancouver, WA

Depot Detour:

Vancouver Passenger Station

Connell Station & Depot

Deanville, TX

Little Drops of Odd

ATSF 5704 Centennial Livery

Conclusion

Warnings, Disclaimers, and Notes

Master Index

Other Works by Bob Campbell

- Not Another Travel Guide

- Not Another Travel Guide: High Octane

- Railroad Photography

About the Author & Contact Information

Introduction

Never mind the weather outside - drizzly, dumpy, cold and snowy... (BNSF 8024 - BNSF 6965 rumbling north past the predominantly empty Connell ladder yards below the scenic auspices of Coyote Ridge Correctional Facility, offering only the finest in medium and minimum security prison and incarceration facilities, January 8, 2022, Connell, WA. Independence Coulee CBRW (Columbia Basin Railroad) trestle bridge in the semi-foreground.)

... blustery, or blistery hot - it's always a good time to enjoy a train. And when you can't be out on the tracks experiencing the fun weather extremes, at least there's always pictures of the world of railroading... all through the year of 2022 in this particular collection. (BNSF 3829 - BNSF 796 southbound covered hopper grain train rounding the bend and