Two trains meet on the Seattle waterfront, 10-31-2013
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- On a cloudy but reasonably nice fall day, I'm on the Seattle waterfront to catch a train. The pedestrian overpass at Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park gives me a birds-eye view of the BNSF mains. This shoot turned out to be full of surprises!
BNSF 4677 (C44-9W) comes around the curve with a northbound stack train. The first pleasant surprise was seeing a KCS SD70MAC in their Retro Belle color scheme in the lashup.
Just as it appeared, I had a most unusual interruption. A still photographer came up on the overpass and set up next to to me to shoot a model against the city skyscape. You can hear them yammering the whole time I was there.
The train slowed and came to a stop. I didn't know why, so I went to the other side of the overpass to see what was going on.
Once there, I could see that they had stopped so the conductor could detrain and line the switch to put them into the D8 siding next to the grain terminal. The train was going to wait on the siding until it was their turn to continue. Since there aren't any intermodal yards north of here, I assume this train originated in in either Seattle or Tacoma and will be headed to Chicago.
Then I look up and see a southbound freight approaching in the distance. Excellent! The stack train throttled up and headed into the siding. I'm no expert, but the engineer had a nice touch on the throttle and started his train with no jerking and banging as the slack was taken up.
BNSF 6712 (ES44C4) led the southbound past us on Main 2. Another surprise was seeing a Canadian Pacific loco on that train. Don't see those very much around here.
There was one more nice surprise to finish off the video. As the stack train finished entering the siding, I caught the utility job from Balmer Yard doing his work. He lined the siding switch back for mainline movement after the stack train cleared. Great shot of him operating the switch if you want to see how a switch works.
The "utility job" is a guy in a truck that can place himself at various places in and around the yard to assist train crews in lining switches, setting out cars and such. In this case, without the utility job to help the conductor would have had to wait at the switch, line it back then walk a mile back to the front of the train.
And that ended another great day of Seattle railfanning!
Stack:
4677 / 789 / 5166 / 4192 / KCS 3920
C44-9W / C44-9W / C44-9W / C44-9W / SD70MAC
Freight:
6712 / CP 8794 / 7154 / unknown
ES44C4 / ES44AC / ES44C4 / big and orange
Great footage; Seattle is a very picturesque city--when the weather's nice.
+ChachaChapati No, it's just as beautiful when it's raining. Maybe more so.
SeattleRailFan Went in August a few years ago for three days; rained two and was sunny for one. But I'll give you that, it is pretty damn scenic even when gloomy.
+ChachaChapati You should have been here this summer. July and August was non-stop 80's and 90's. Heck, we hit 80 degrees today, here in early September. We'll get summers like this, then ones where we barely hit 70 even once.
SeattleRailFan Beautiful weather or not, there was no shortage of trains. All it took was a short walk to the Jackson Street overpass and a freight would emerge from the tunnel within five minutes.
+ChachaChapati Yup, the mainline through the city is very busy with freight trains, commuter trains and Amtrak.
Greetings from NC! Awesome video, Seattle looks like a wonderful place to live! Thanks for sharing, I enjoy your videos!
Another great waterfront video with a mix of motive power. Thank's so much for sharing.
Another great one. Please keep em coming.
Super job SRF!, a good mix of power and some great GE sounds !. Plus a cute blonde as well..LOL. Loved it.
Cheers Gregg
awesome video...thank you for sharing
Really injoyed the video
I'm amazed there are still level crossings in the downtown of a major American city. Surely as place as prosperous as Seattle could build grade separation.
Problem is grade separation takes space. Lots of space. If a road has to be raised 20-25 feet to clear the tracks, you need a ramp a couple of hundred feet long to keep the ramp grade from being too steep. Here on the waterfront, there just isn't enough room for long ramps.
Only if there was so much rail traffic that it was seriously impacting road traffic would monies be spent on grade separation. Right now, it really isn't that much of a problem. The roads impacted here aren't right in the core of downtown where traffic volumes are much higher.
SeattleRailFan I'll bet there were many dozens of motorists delayed by this event who would disagree with you - probably vehemently! ~15 minutes spent waiting at a crossing while trains dawdle by would not exactly make their day. Excellent filming work, btw.
The story on the red caboose that you see near the end of the video is that it's an old Great Northern caboose (at least it's painted in GN colors) that's been parked by that building for decades. It's rented out as office space. Go to Google Maps and search for "3161 Elliott Ave, Seattle". Switch to Street View and you can see it in the parking lot.
awesome videos!
A very nice video of the twin meet. And Yes I did subscribe, very interesting.
Good job conductor, detrained without the reflective vest
Like it is in Chicago...many Highrises and Condos are squeezing railroads to have to go through locations like this...but I think they are fun to watch and photograph! I have to make another trip out there one of these days! Ten to One they have passed ordinances about Trains blowing horns at crossings in this area! But they can use the bells, however.
OMG! Look at that "squeezzzzzzeee" that the Freight Train has to go into the curve next to that building! Well, BNSF know what it's doing!
why did he not throttle up as soon as he threw thecswitch?
Warren Buffet sure has a nice train set in Seattle !
Is there a story to the caboose?
aw to bad the warbonnet wasn't leading
Hey Seattle, is that spur on the right used anymore, or is it a relic track?
That track was originally the Northern Pacific mainline that ran right along the waterfront. It went out of use in the '70s In the '80s it was re-purposed for use by a waterfront trolley. We bought some old trolley cars from Melbourne Australia and they ran back and froth down the waterfront, mostly as a tourist thing. It's been out of service for 7-8 years or so, though.
Sweet video, that KCS motive power was a real treat to see. We don't get a lot of KCS motive power in the PNW.
Also thanks for railfanning Seattle so I don't have to. I tend to railfan Vancouver, Kalama, and Kelso so you don't have to as well. Feel free to check out my channel sometime.
John
Quiet zones are from the devil.
This Guy Agreed. Can't stand the wimpy sounding "whistle" they produce. Wimpy city dwellers - don't like train horns, don't buy a condo by the tracks!