Eastbound Empties At Perma
It's pretty cliche right now and everyone is doing it, but there is a reason those of us of the rail persuasion all take certain pilgrimages. Be it the changing of the guard of motive power, the end of operations on certain routes, or the 'falling of a flag' as a once independent railroad is bought or merged out of existence. The last year has come with news of three major losses of the latter variety so I too had to jump on the documentary band wagon for my own peace of mind.
To that end, last summer's trip was my first and possibly only chance to see the heart of the original Kansas City Southern Railway as its days of independence wane. Meanwhile here in New England the loss of the nation's largest regional (in mileage), Pan Am Railways, was right in my backyard so the chance to document it required little in the way of special effort. So that left only the Montana Rail Link which is soon to return to the fold of giant BNSF from which it was leased into existence by predecessor Burlington Northern in 1987.
Countless articles have been written about the MRL over the past 35 years of its existence so I won't rehash that here. If you care to learn more download this great set of articles courtesy of Trains Magazine:
www.trains.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/TRN-MRL.pdf
While I was unable to take my long annual late summer trip with Frank and John and opportunity arose for an abbreviated trip with a friend from New England and we arranged to meet in Missoula for a whirlwind three and a half days of chasing and shooting that would see us cover the railroad as far west as Thompson Falls and as far east as Billings. Despite. We made the conscious choice to focus on strictly MRL powered trains and despite the railroad being dominated by BNSF overhead traffic I only lensed four trains led by BNSF power in the span of this trip that saw us drive nearly 3000 miles!
As expected I have a LOT of photos and they will dominate my feed for a bit as I drop them into the album and journal my adventure. So come along if you wish. I'm going to start by posting one photo of each train of the trip in chronological order before doubling back to fill in with shots from all the spots from each respective chase.
The second train of the trip on Day 2 was a Monday morning chase of the empty returning 'Day Gas' eastbound from Pipeline just east of Thompson Falls back to Missoula. This train and its evening counterpart are arguably the most popular trains on the entirety of the over 900 mile long system. The reasons for that are obvious in that the pair of trains always run with blue MRL units and are the only trains guaranteed to do so west of Missoula. Additionally the westbound night gas makes for a perfect chase into the sun while the returning eastbound day gas offers a perfectly lit chase east making for a photographers dream. So in true unimaginative foamer fashion that's exactly what we did chasing the train west, then spending a relaxing night at the Rimrock Lodge with dinner on the deck at Big Eddy's and then heading east with the empty train on Monday morning.
So here is what is arguably THE signature shot of the chase as SD70ACes 4408 and 4406 (both built new for the road in Apr. 2014) lead a string of empties near the old NP station of Perma beside the Flathead River at about MP 54 on the modern day MRL's 10th Subdivision mainline. In the distance high in the Bitterroot Range can be seen the 6843 ft summit of Patricks Knob west of Paradise.
This is the original Northern Pacific Railway mainline that opened in 1883 as the second transcontinental railroad. This route was largely supplanted in 1909 when the NP completed a cut off between the mainline at Paradise and the Coeur d'Alene Branch at St. Regis creating a water level route from DeSmet (just west of Missoula) that exists today as MRL's 4th Subdivision Mainline. In days of old the 10th Sub over Evaro Hill was largely the domain of passenger trains though today MRL sees fit to use it for empty eastbound unit trains. The only exception to the rule are the gas locals which seem to take this route west whenever they can due to their light tonnage which allows them to make the hill with ease while shaving off nearly 30 miles.
As for these gas trains, they are strictly MRL affair having come into being in 1995 when a gap was created in the 40 yr old and 531 mile long Yellowstone Pipeline when the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe chose not to renew the pipeline company's lease of 21 miles of right of way across their Flathead Indian Reservation. To learn about how and why this came about this article may be of interest: www.bigskywords.com/montana-blog/the-yellowstone-pipeline...
Flathead Reservation
Sanders County, Montana
Monday September 5, 2022
Eastbound Empties At Perma
It's pretty cliche right now and everyone is doing it, but there is a reason those of us of the rail persuasion all take certain pilgrimages. Be it the changing of the guard of motive power, the end of operations on certain routes, or the 'falling of a flag' as a once independent railroad is bought or merged out of existence. The last year has come with news of three major losses of the latter variety so I too had to jump on the documentary band wagon for my own peace of mind.
To that end, last summer's trip was my first and possibly only chance to see the heart of the original Kansas City Southern Railway as its days of independence wane. Meanwhile here in New England the loss of the nation's largest regional (in mileage), Pan Am Railways, was right in my backyard so the chance to document it required little in the way of special effort. So that left only the Montana Rail Link which is soon to return to the fold of giant BNSF from which it was leased into existence by predecessor Burlington Northern in 1987.
Countless articles have been written about the MRL over the past 35 years of its existence so I won't rehash that here. If you care to learn more download this great set of articles courtesy of Trains Magazine:
www.trains.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/TRN-MRL.pdf
While I was unable to take my long annual late summer trip with Frank and John and opportunity arose for an abbreviated trip with a friend from New England and we arranged to meet in Missoula for a whirlwind three and a half days of chasing and shooting that would see us cover the railroad as far west as Thompson Falls and as far east as Billings. Despite. We made the conscious choice to focus on strictly MRL powered trains and despite the railroad being dominated by BNSF overhead traffic I only lensed four trains led by BNSF power in the span of this trip that saw us drive nearly 3000 miles!
As expected I have a LOT of photos and they will dominate my feed for a bit as I drop them into the album and journal my adventure. So come along if you wish. I'm going to start by posting one photo of each train of the trip in chronological order before doubling back to fill in with shots from all the spots from each respective chase.
The second train of the trip on Day 2 was a Monday morning chase of the empty returning 'Day Gas' eastbound from Pipeline just east of Thompson Falls back to Missoula. This train and its evening counterpart are arguably the most popular trains on the entirety of the over 900 mile long system. The reasons for that are obvious in that the pair of trains always run with blue MRL units and are the only trains guaranteed to do so west of Missoula. Additionally the westbound night gas makes for a perfect chase into the sun while the returning eastbound day gas offers a perfectly lit chase east making for a photographers dream. So in true unimaginative foamer fashion that's exactly what we did chasing the train west, then spending a relaxing night at the Rimrock Lodge with dinner on the deck at Big Eddy's and then heading east with the empty train on Monday morning.
So here is what is arguably THE signature shot of the chase as SD70ACes 4408 and 4406 (both built new for the road in Apr. 2014) lead a string of empties near the old NP station of Perma beside the Flathead River at about MP 54 on the modern day MRL's 10th Subdivision mainline. In the distance high in the Bitterroot Range can be seen the 6843 ft summit of Patricks Knob west of Paradise.
This is the original Northern Pacific Railway mainline that opened in 1883 as the second transcontinental railroad. This route was largely supplanted in 1909 when the NP completed a cut off between the mainline at Paradise and the Coeur d'Alene Branch at St. Regis creating a water level route from DeSmet (just west of Missoula) that exists today as MRL's 4th Subdivision Mainline. In days of old the 10th Sub over Evaro Hill was largely the domain of passenger trains though today MRL sees fit to use it for empty eastbound unit trains. The only exception to the rule are the gas locals which seem to take this route west whenever they can due to their light tonnage which allows them to make the hill with ease while shaving off nearly 30 miles.
As for these gas trains, they are strictly MRL affair having come into being in 1995 when a gap was created in the 40 yr old and 531 mile long Yellowstone Pipeline when the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe chose not to renew the pipeline company's lease of 21 miles of right of way across their Flathead Indian Reservation. To learn about how and why this came about this article may be of interest: www.bigskywords.com/montana-blog/the-yellowstone-pipeline...
Flathead Reservation
Sanders County, Montana
Monday September 5, 2022