Railroads and Trains 2023

By Bob Campbell

Railroads and Trains 2023 adds to the expanding Long - Long - Short . Long - annual recording of railway operational and livery changes and developments as seen along our local set of tracks. This year, we cover monthly observations, livery presence and change, plus additional expansions of shifts in operation noted, a possible resurgence in the caboose starting to brew, the venerable Connell interchange between Class I and local / regional rail traffic and freight, plus many other views to encompass train and rail activity over the past year.
In addition to lots of Pasco, Washington rail activity, there will be the usual Connell corridor and neighboring areas, a smattering look into Vancouver, Washington's BNSF Center and tracks near the Vancouver Amtrak Station, plus a dabbling down South with some coverage between the Pacific Northwest and Texas, including a nifty little dumb luck crossing in the mountainous west of some smaller railway flavors.
These helpful collections provide a running commentary and visual record of how some parts of the great North American Railroad Transportation complex function and operate. Useful for everyone from rail fans and railroad enthusiasts to model railroaders looking for solid representations of 1:1 scale rail procedures; or just for some cool train and locomotive pictures to look at and wile away the day while avoiding work or researching "How to look busy" when it's too close to quitting time to start something new. There's nothing like a visual vacation to escape daily drudgery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Campbell
• Release date: Jan 6, 2024
• ISBN: 9798215344309

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

Introduction

It's another year in trains, locomotives, and railroad action charging at you! [ BNSF 6618 - BNSF 5351 double-header mixed freight converting from northbound-to-eastbound in transition at the southern end of BNSF Pasco Center, clipping the bottom rails of the BNSF locomotive service area along the wye headed out toward the new east Pasco industrial development sprawling and extending the city further from previous city limits, April 28, 2023, Pasco, WA.)

Not to sound too dramatic about it, but honestly, stop and look before it's gone. Before we know it, the common, everyday sights, sounds, and living history rapidly become museum pieces... bagged and stuffed into parks and waysides, and eventually forgotten completely. [ NP 1354 and tender 'bagged and stuffed' in front of the Franklin County Courthouse and County Offices with temperatures in the upper nineties and low hundreds and oddly clear (for our area) skies (the winds for once favoring us and not blowing all the wildfire smoke from Oregon, California, Nevada, Alberta (Canada) and smaller Washington fires into our area.) July 13, 2023, Pasco, WA ]

Still plying the rails it's possible to find not just classic locomotives and power units, but the remnants of 'fallen flags' and railways of yesteryear out in the wild if folks will only take the time to really look. (Note the MKT gondola: the old Katy Line of Missouri, Kansas, and Texas still visible through the graffiti (vandalism) and aging paint; along with the red butt-end of long-since dead Southern Pacific livery just outside the frame.) [ UP 1050 lashed up to MKT 16055 on her nose with a small little local shift among Hearne's slowly reducing ladder yard. Which is a little sad after the big plans to greatly expand the Hearne Center into a giant facility appears to have fallen through (at least by local rumor.) March 10, 2023, Hearne, TX ]

So rise and shine, and catch those passing moments before tomorrow becomes yesterday. [ BNSF 2768 - BNSF 2694 local yard pair under a brilliant early winter sunrise over the BNSF Pasco Center maintenance area and power holding corral. A 'fresh water' (potable water) tank mini-consist / fire suppression tankers held behind the parked locomotives near a pair of BNSF passenger cars (not lashed up to them, no matter how it looks in the picture.) November 8, 2023, Pasco, WA ]

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2023 A Year of Trains: Monthly Countdown

Journey first with us through 2023 - a year of trains (when we could find 'em) - in illustrious semi-chronologic order through the months. [ BNSF 1469 all by herself near the BNSF Pasco Center road-readiness and service trackage. Although in previous years, her job usually involved a lash-up duo serving the Connell yard Columbia Basin Railroad (CBRW) exchange... possibly less active this year as it has become quite the challenge to get any movement or activity in the Connell yards as of late. Today, though, sunning herself on September 9, 2023 in Pasco, WA, back in the home holding pens at BNSF. ]

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January

Welcome to January and the start of our train year! No, contrary to what it may appear in this shot, it's not midnight - or even early morning - on January 1. No sense in freezing one's butt off too quickly in the miserable weather start of the year - after only four straight weeks of snow on the ground, only melting off a few days before the start of 2023. This dank, dark, and cold shot was taken during the noon hour. Yes, it's really this miserable at 12:45PM (a quarter 'till one in the afternoon.) What a great start to the train year! But at least there's trains. A few of them. Well, three is a few, right? Fine. Truth in advertising: at least three locomotives were found this day. Along with cold. And dark. Lots of dark. [BNSF 8051 - BNSF 8245 with a northbound auto-flat/rack - mixed freight consist caught moments before coming to a stop and shutting it all down... extinguishing the lights on this somewhat shortened first train hunt for the year in the first week of 2023: BNSF Pasco Center East (north) yard near the tail-end of the hump sort ladder, January 6, 2023, Pasco, WA.)

Luckily in just over a week, the sun would come out in all its glory. Much more like our typical winter: cold, but sunny. Unlike our typical winter, it was only for less than a full day before the cold combined with growing clouds and more threats of single digit temperatures. [ BNSF 1658 yard girl with her somewhat twin holding ready in the southern / main section of BNSF Pasco Center on a day that was all about the yard engine as there were only a very small handful of regular road freight, long-haul 4400hp bigger sisters to be found over the hour or more wandering and lingering around the rails on January 14, 2023, in Pasco, WA.]

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A week later, giving up on the sun coming back, it was a trip to the big city and sprawling metropolitan center of Connell, out in the lonely sage steppes of Eastern Washington where the ground was still soggy from the continual snows, followed by drizzle, followed by continued no sun, followed by freezing fog, followed by darkness and unforgiving weather where one loses all hope... I mean, I'm sure there was sun. Somewhere. At least it wasn't as windy as it could've been while sitting above the old Connell ladder yard. But all the complaints were immaterial: unlike last year, I was starting out the year having caught up with the CBRW - BNSF freight interchange / Class I hand-off! Which thankfully was still happening right below the sage dunes of Connell, providing a couple hours of (frozen) entertainment. [ CBRW 166 - CBRW 302 pulling quickly back up into home territory and crossing the Independence Coulee bridge of the Columbia Basin Railway with an extremely short ten freight