Here is a belated trip report concerning a recent pilgrimage to the Powder River Basin and Marias Pass. Actually, the trip took place about a month ago, September 23-29, but I waited until I got my slides back before putting the finishing touches on my notes. I've already posted the long version of this report to the local Minnesota list and the OS list, complete with all of the ridiculously long BNSF train symbols. I'll be a little more brief in this report.
Of the three in our party, none of us had been in the Powder River Basin and only one of us had been to Marias (once) so it was a learning experience for the most part. Our driver (Steve Glischinski, a good guy to have at the wheel when you're in a hurry), picked the other two of us up in Denver Tuesday 9/23. He had driven all the way from Minneapolis, visiting family and getting an extra couple days of shooting before we arrived. Steve spent Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in western Nebraska and Wyoming under cloudy, rainy skies but fortunately he was able to scope out most of the photo spots before the two of us arrived from MSP and DFW respectively. Wednesday and Thursday, our days spent on the Orin Sub., were cloudless and warm with light winds. We stayed on the southern part of the line on Wednesday shooting such areas as Nacco Jct., Logan, Bill and Walker. Lots of UP trains here, outnumbering BNSF trains about 3 to 1 I would guess. Most of the BNSF trains had SD70MAC's but a surprising number had combinations of SD60's, C30's and SD40-2's for power. Except for the odd SD90MAC trailing, UP is all GE here. And, after watching train after train with UP GE's I almost think I would rather shoot an SD70MAC. My advice to UP is to take that nice shield herald and make it larger than the size of a postage stamp on the nose of the unit. The great thing about the UP trains in the basin is that the majority had C&NW 8800's leading, most of which were fairly clean. We shot about 13 different CNW 8800's leading trains on Wednesday and got multiple shots of most of them. Trains run like streetcars although there were some congestion problems at different times of the day. We shot about 25 different trains, concentrating on those in favorable light and those with C&NW units leading and blowing off probably a dozen more trains. The fourth main track up Logan Hill appears to be almost done. There is MOW equipment all over the place so we had to do lots of moving around to keep all of this stuff out of our shots. The access roads served us well and the employees we ran into were all friendly. The easiest access and easiest shooting is from Bill south where the tracks follow the road for a ways. The neatest part of the line is on Logan Hill, particularly the area between Nacco Jct. and Converse Jct. There are some nice curves here and you can get nice elevation. With 60 or 70 trains per day it isn't tough to get the angles you want. On Thursday we stayed mostly on the north end of the line, north of Reno. Traffic up here is probably 3 to 1 in favor of BNSF and just as busy. If you like SD70MAC's you'll love this area. Up here, the neatest area is around Caballo Jct. and south for a few miles, roughly MP 14 to MP 20. Again, lots of curves and some nice hillsides to shoot from. This end of the lines was pretty much gridlocked on Thursday, crews were dying so fast you couldn't keep track. We did get some nice shots, but tired of the whole operation by early afternoon and headed for Donkey Creek. We wanted to follow a westbound if possible as we were headed that way and wished to be near Marias Pass by Friday morning. Along with a few more coal trains, first up was a westbound Z train with an SD40-2 followed by a stack train with an "Oakway" and a Santa Fe SD40. Uninspired by either of these, we headed into Gillette to find a westbound junk train getting ready to go with a clean C30-7/SD40-2 set. This was pretty neat for those of us that don't see too many C30's so we followed him west towards Sheridan until it got dark. This line is very scenic in spots and worthy of a trip back someday. After getting gas and food we were underway from Sheridan about 2130 for the 600 mile overnight jaunt to Marias. Pit stops were made in Laurel, Great Falls and Cut Bank before encountering an eastbound Z train at Piegan just after sunrise with a dirty pumpkin in the lead. Another eastbound Z train was encountered at the east overpass at Browning in spectacular light with a clean pumpkin leading. Is there a bleaker place on earth than Browning? On our many trips through town over the next few days we had several near misses with automobiles and stray dogs. The wind was typically so strong by early afternoon that you could hardly stand up, must be lovely in January. Back to the subject, with a sun/cloud mix we headed through East Glacier and encountered an eastbound just cutting off the helpers at Summit. This guy had two clean pumpkins for power and we chased him east as far as Cut Bank getting lots of sunny shots, except for Two Medicine Bridge and Grizzley. After getting mostly clouded out on the Cut Bank bridge and totally clouded out for Amtrak, we picked up old No. 1 (now ZCHCSSE3) and headed back west. We got several more trains through mid afternoon between East Glacier and Browning, battling clouds (mostly successfully). The mountains were totally cloudy with heavy rain by now. Traffic died about 1500 so we headed for the Izaak Walton for the night. More of the same on Saturday. Rain and clouds in the mountains, the sun was peeking out by the time we got down to East Glacier. So, back and forth we went again, chasing trains between there and Browning. By early afternoon we tired of this exercise and decided to head for Whitefish. Fortunately, I called home Friday night and my wife forwarded a message Jim had left about the officer's special with the 739-740 departing Whitefish Sunday morning. We got to Whitefish about 1430 under partly cloudy skies and ended up getting some neat shots of the train sitting by the depot along with a few freights. They made a Belton turn with the passenger train late Saturday afternoon and we chased but under cloudy skies by now. There were several other railfans around Whitefish and the general consensus was that the scheme on the 960 series units was a lot nicer, just put them through the wash rack every once in a while. Still, the 739-740 looked quite spectacular sitting there in the nice, low sun. Weather was predicted to be sunny on Sunday, perfect for following the passenger train east from Whitefish but we awoke to total clouds at Essex. We headed west to Whitefish, still total clouds. The train finally departed around 1000 and we followed east getting more shots than I can think of. It was an impressive sight with the two fresh units and 19 cars. Thank goodness for Provia on this stretch. I have the slides back and was totally impressed, some of the nicest looking cloudy day shots I've ever taken. We followed east over the summit and, predictably, got our first sunny shot near Bison. Once again, Two Medicine and Grizzley were cloudy but, surprise, surprise, the west overpass at Browning was in full sun. Like Jim at Laguna, I do not need any more shots off of the west overpass at Browning. We could have followed to Cut Bank and Shelby, but cut cross country to find a decent spot south of Shelby. We found a great location at Fowler but as it turned out the sun was down the nose and the headlights and ditch lights were turned off, oh well, still a good chase. For anybody in this area and with the increased traffic levels on the Great Falls line, Fowler is a NEAT spot from about mid afternoon on. In our never ending quest to stay in the sun, we headed up to Shelby and followed several trains back and forth on either side of town including Amtrak 7. Monday morning, time to go. Surprise, mostly clear skies in the mountains! Oh well, we had to drop one guy off in Kalispell for a 0600 flight so nothing we could do about it. Besides, radio chatter on the way to Kalispell indicated a general lack of eastbound traffic out of Whitefish. From there Steve and myself headed for Paradise and the MRL as I didn't have to be to the Missoula airport until about noon. The skies were brilliantly clear except for some patchy fog. The recent "Blades for Busse" post on Foamer proved useful here as we located some semaphores and headed west of Thompson Falls to intercept an eastbound. Along comes our eastbound, initial major disappointment as two BN SD40-2's come into view with the all too typical one ditch light burned out. We warmed up to the train though as the units were both clean and the train was almost entirely BN cascade green grain hoppers. Many nice shots were had at such locations as Eddy, Thompson Falls, Weeksville, Plains, Paradise, Quinns and St. Regis. On the way east he met the Paradise Local at Thompson Falls, a westbound BNSF with an LMX and twinkie at Plains and the westbound MRL gas local at Paradise. All in all a good trip. You can't go wrong on the coal line as far as train volumes and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of traffic on Marias. This was my first true test of Provia, I ended up shooting about 2/3 K25 and 1/3 Provia. I was VERY impressed with the Provia. In fact, in a couple instances where I shot both films, I thought the Provia outperformed the K25 even in full sun/nice light conditions. One thing's for sure, Provia has replaced K64 for me, I haven't had much luck with that stuff the past several years, particularly the professional stuff. Provia seems to be a much more stable film. Mike Cleary Woodbury, Minnesota <---- End Forwarded Message ----> --> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects
