Aristo-Craft tank car (BN 21778)

Another recent purchase was a tank car, in this case one that would have been used for hauling diesel fuel. And of course it had to be in Burlington Northern colors.

Out on the track for a photo op.

The rail branch lines on the Palouse were focused primarily on getting products out to market – grain, pulses, lumber and wood products. But there was also some inbound traffic to support agriculture, mostly chemical fertilizers and diesel fuel. Those products were hauled in tank cars like this one. This is a mid-century style car, built by riveting steel plates together, unlike the much larger, welded cars you see on rails today.

Here's a slightly better picture where you can more clearly see the rivets

I wasn’t able to find a high-quality photo of an BN tank car that was as old as this model, but here’s a link to a photo of a very similar tank car from the Spokane, Portland & Seattle. Notice the rivets along the length of the car and also around connecting the end caps.

For comparison here’s a link to a slightly more modern Burlington Northern tank car built in the mid-1980s. This one is also designed for hauling diesel fuel, and in this case it was being used as a fuel tender (an external fuel tank) for the two diesel locomotives on either side of it. BN experimented with using fuel tenders to lengthen the time the locomotives could operate without visiting a refueling station. If you’re interested in learning more, here’s a link to a lengthy article about how BN made use of fuel tenders that includes lots of detailed pictures!

I plan on running this tank car empty, as there is always a danger in hauling explosive fuels! Check out this article from HistoryLink.org about a single Burlington Northern tank car that exploded in Wenatchee in 1974 killing two people, injuring 66 more and causing over $5 million in damages.

Locomotive Power: Alco FA-1 (Amtrak 2036)

On a whim I recently purchased an Aristo-Craft Amtrak FA-1 as I thought the PE&A needed passenger service. As the theme for my railroad is the 1970s it seemed appropriate to acquire an older style Amtrak locomotive.

Not running yet—just out for a photo op.

The FA-1 was a diesel locomotive designed for hauling freight trains that was manufactured by Alco between 1946 and 1950. A total of 445 FA-1 units and 249 FB-1 units were built—the FB-1 was a booster locomotive without a cab designed to trail behind the FA-1. Aristo-Craft also created an FB-1 unit in Amtrak colors which I may need to acquire someday. And, of course, some passenger cars.

This locomotive is inaccurate in the sense that an FA-1 was never used by Amtrak. When Amtrak was created in 1971 it inherited numerous locomotives of all sorts from railroads that had been providing regional and long distance passenger service, but not a single Alco FA-1 was included. And it’s unlikely one would have been since this locomotive wasn’t designed for passenger service. A very similar locomotive, the FPA-2, was manufactured by Alco in the 1950s for passenger service, although Amtrak didn’t inherit one of those either.

Burlington Northern inherited a few FA-1 units from Great Northern and several units from the Spokane, Portland & Seattle, so it's likely this locomotive would have been seen around the Palouse on a regular basis. But they would have been hauling freight, not passengers.

Amtrak 2036 in the shop for a tune-up.

When it arrived I immediately put it on a track to test it out and…it didn’t move. This is always a risk when buying second hand trains from non-train sellers on eBay, who can describe what it looks like but couldn't tell you a thing about it's actual condition. So out came the tools and off came the hood, and after a bit of fiddling with the wires I was able to validate both the trucks were operational and it seems to be in decent condition. I hope to have it running outside as soon as track is up to code.

Checking out the wires for the front truck. Looks like one got severely pinched somehow, which might be part of the problem.

Multi-page diagrams like this one can be found online showing how all the parts fit together. These are very useful for taking apart and reassembling the locomotive. And I get to learn what the names of the locomotive parts are in the process.

Spring cleanup time for the PE&A

Signs of Spring are rapidly appearing—the croci are in bloom, the lawn is growing fast enough to be mowed regularly, and American Robins are starting to look around for nesting sites. That means it’s time to get trains up and running again on the PE&A!

Springtime along the PE&A right of way. The croci are in bloom and the moss is bright green.

Overall the railroad weathered its first winter well despite all the rain and snow. Meteorological Winter (December 1 to the end of February) was much wetter than usual in the Puget Sound region and cooler than normal as well, in contrast to most of the U.S. which was significantly warmer than normal this winter. The KSEA METAR station received 19.77 inches compared to a normal of 11.59. The result of all this excess rain, heavy at times, was localized erosion of ballast.

A little late season snow just dusting the bridge

Because of the cooler than normal temperatures there was also a bit more snow than usual, almost 12 inches total over the winter (compared to a normal of four), and about eight inches of the total occurred in a single snow event February 5–6. The snow was quickly weighed down as it transitioned to rain and ice, resulting in a few broken branches crashing to the ground. One branch came very close to smashing the elevated track, but fortunately the ground absorbed most of the blow and there is no visible damage to the track.

Croci insisting that the snow should be gone by now.

The ballast settling and erosion isn’t significantly more than what I was expecting, and overall the track is still in place where it should be and level. I think it will take me between two and four hours of work to add new ballast where needed to get the track back up to safety code so trains can start running again.

Differential erosion where unprotected ballast was washed out by rain, leaving miniature buttresses under each tie.

Significant erosion next to one of the bridge approaches. Heavy erosion here was expected—this is a spot where I'm planning to build cribbing to hold the ballast in place.

Detail showing of significant erosion, likely due to runoff from garage roof.

Rolling Stock: SP&S Boxcar 12511

Another stop on our recent weekend up north was Art Knapp Mud Bay Village in Surrey, BC which includes a fantastic room stocked with everything you need for your garden train. It's an entire train store within a big garden store and it's focused just on garden trains. There is a great selection of rolling stock and track from different manufacturers including sectional track in a variety of curvatures. As the target scale of the PE&A is 1:29, I was excited to see so many Aristo-Craft boxes lining the shelves.

I only took a few snapshots in the store and they don't do the place justice. Check out the short video on their website to get a better feel for the place. Unfortunately it was raining (and snowing a bit too) the day we stopped by so the trains weren't running outside and I didn't take any pictures of the outside tracks. I'll just have to come back on a nicer day to see the layout in action.

Look at all the pretty yellow Aristo-Craft boxes!

A dizzying array of curvature options. Most of the track is from Aristo-Craft and AML, but I think
I also saw some Bachmann and LGB.

Rolling stock options included Aristo-Craft, Piko, USA Trains and American Mainline. Maybe some Bachmann too?

I couldn't leave empty-handed so I went home with an Aristo-Craft SP&S boxcar 12511. As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, the Spokane Portland & Seattle Railway is one of the four major railroads that merged to form Burlington Northern in 1971. Prior to the merger SP&S was co-owned by Great Northern and Northern Pacific. The SP&S mainline ran from Spokane to Portland and skirted the eastern edge of the Palouse region. In part due to its partial ownership by NP, SP&S boxcars would frequently be found along NP lines across the Palouse. A 40-foot boxcar like this is typical of what would have been used for hauling grain on branch lines up until the late 1970's.

SP&S boxcar 12511

I couldn't find a picture online of SP&S 12511, but here are links to a few similar boxcars in the same numbering range and with a similar paint job: SP&S 12048, SP&S 12183 and SP&S 12270. The way the S.P.&S. letters are spaced in descending steps on these cars is a very odd design choice and I'm not sure why it was done, although I do like it. The descending SP&S lettering was only used for a few years -- it's more common to see SP&S cars where the letters are aligned horizontally. For comparison, here's the picture I posted a few months ago of the SP&S boxcar at the Inland Northwest Rail Museum which is a slightly later model and lettering design.

SP&S boxcar 13430

Bellingham Railway Museum

This weekend we made a trip up north which included a stop at the Bellingham Railway Museum. It's not a very big museum—it occupies a storefront downtown—but it does a good job of illustrating the importance of railroads to the history of Bellingham and Whatcom County through plenty of photos and maps. And, of likely greater interest to readers of this blog, there's a G-scale railroad right in the middle of it!

The railroad models some of the industries that were important to the establishment and growth of Bellingham, specifically logging, lumber mills and coal mining.

A Bloedel Donovan Lumber Mills 2-6-6-2 heading across the trestle. I think this is a Baldwin Logging Mallet?

Logging camp with spar and cables on the left.

Close up detail showing the wood-fueled crane for loading logs. In this camp there were both skeleton log cars and trucks without center beams which could be used for logs of varying lengths. 

Log dump and pond next to the lumber mill.

A growing pile of cedar shakes outside the shake mill.

Close up of a skeleton log car.

A coal tipple and a couple of hoppers waiting to be loaded.

In addition to a rail lines, Bellingham had a number of electric trolley lines that linked neighborhoods. This map shows the full extent of the trolley system and its growth over time, and also shows the electric interurban line (#10) heading south out of town. Originally the Bellingham & Skagit Interburan Railway, it was known as the Pacific Northwest Traction Company at the point in time this map represents. Starting in 1912 it was possible to travel by interurban from Bellingham to Mount Vernon in a little over an hour, with a car leaving each end point every 90 minutes.

Historic trolley and interurban routes overlaid on a contemporary map of Bellingham.

The Bellingham Railway Museum also had a beautiful railroad map of Washington from the late 1920's. I've seen this map before but not as well preserved as this one -- the colored lines are all bright and vibrant. The purpose of displaying this map was of course to show Bellingham railroads in context of the whole state, but I was immediately draw to my favorite part. The detail below is a closeup of Whitman County and I've highlighted the towns of Palouse and Elberton. This map shows the maximum extent of track building on the Palouse and shows all six railroads that served the area:

• Oregon Railway & Navigation (dark brown)
• Northern Pacific (red)
• Spokane, Portland & Seattle (purplish-gray)
• Washington, Idaho & Montana (not in color on the map, just a hashed line headed east from Palouse)
• Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific (orange)
• Spokane Coeur d'Alene & Palouse (green, shown on the map as the SC&P, but often referred to by its older name, Spokane & Inland Empire)

Detail of 1920's map showing full extent of railroad building on the Palouse.

One additional railroad of note on this map is the Camas Pairie Railroad which you can see at the bottom of the image along the north bank of the Snake River. It did not build tracks up onto the Palouse, but it did still serve local farmers by exporting grain from stations along the river.

Links for more information:

• Bellingham Railway Museum
• Historylink.org article on the Bellingham & Skagit Interburban Railway