An Afternoon at Portland, OR

I decided to spend the afternoon of July 15th roaming around Northwest Portland, mainly at Union Station and along the tracks. Several factors that made this an interesting day for the railroad, was the BN unit on the point of the Coast Starlight, some switching action for both the Empire Builder and Coast Starlight at PDX.

First, I start off at Union Station, where I did some work while taking photos along the way. Yesterday, the Empire Builder with loco 88 was B/O, so the 119 was pulled off the NB Starlight to be used for the Builder to Spokane and back. The NB Starlight continued to Seattle with the BN unit on the point, and the 509 trailing.

Today, the Empire Builder returns with the 119 and 155. The 119 is switched out, and the 88 and 60 switch the mail and express cars. 60 came in a few days ago, the brake valve was B/O, so the 507 was the third unit on the NB Starlight that came off to rescue the Builder.

Then, the Starlight came back down from Seattle with BN 3008 and AMTK 509, switched the BN to Track 1 at PDX, and put the 119 on the point. It departed PDX roughly over 2 hours late. The NB Starlight wasn't even that late, and arrived into PDX with 141 and 115.

Cascades 504/508 laying over at Track 2 in PDX, with the freshly-painted 465 and the NPCU 90251 on the other end. Cascades 507 with 467 and 90340 left Portland shortly after being refueled. Kind of funny when the SB Starlight, NB Starlight, and the Cascades all has to be refueled in the same hour! The fuel truck kicked up plenty of dust, hauling tank from place to place. :-)

Before you move onto the gallery, you may notice some over-exposure, bad coloring. A young kid got ahold of my camera, and dropped it, so the results aren't as pleasant, I plan on getting a new camera... (a D70, woo hoo!)