Skykomish Saturday 11-14-09
November 16th, 2009 by briannpmanFriday night there was a 500-1000ft snow level in the Washington Cascades so Saturday morning, 11-14-09 I was on my way to Skykomish to see how much snow there was around Skykomish. Left the house around 0830 and was soon heading east from Monroe on Highway 2. Instead of being cloudy it was a clear and sunny morning. No falling snow shots today! Very quiet on the Scenic Sub but I started to see snow on the ground and in the trees after Index. But no trains. Coming into Skykomish the detector at MP 1730 went off as I passed the town exit. Got to the east end of the siding in time to see the end of a westbound doublestacker. Any eastbound it might have met at Scenic would be long gone by now so I turned around and headed west after the stacker. I was well ahead of it by Baring where I pulled off at the west switch for this one and only shot.
Leading were BNSF 5226/696/5173/4882/5086. It was by Baring at 10:16 and I continued to follow it down to Gold Bar. By a detector it showed having 350 axles and a temperature of 40 degrees. Kind of warming up now. I waited at Gold Bar awhile and listened to the progress of a following high-rail making its way west from Skykomish down to Snohomish.
Noon arrived so I headed east to Zeke’s Drive-In for a burger. After eating I took a few photos of the caboose outside the drive in. The ex-NP caboose is painted red with no markings on the north side.
I noticed the number 1242 above the door on the west end. Stands to reason this was the former NP 1242 that was built in 1908!
The caboose has a GN emblem on the south side making it kind of GNP I suppose.
The average person stopping here for lunch isn’t going to be thinking about the history of this caboose anyway. To them it’s just a little red caboose. And this is better than getting cut up for firewood.
Leaving Zeke’s I headed east to Index. I wanted to explore around the GN built bridge here. I had seen photos in a GN book with F-units crossing it and the caption saying this bridge at MP 1746 had been modified to allow for curved track on a straight bridge. I found a road and trail leading right to the west end of the bridge and got a good look at what the caption had explained for myself. Pretty cool!
The bridge does look wider to accommodate the curve. Appears to be in need of some new paint however! I headed back up to Skykomish (it had clouded over) and waited to see if BNSF was going to run anything else. By 14:30 I figured no and before heading for home photographed the GN caboose X228 on display here at Skykomish in a homeowners yard. It sure does look nice!
The snow adds a nice wintry look to the scene. I then headed west on Highway 2 to Monroe without seeing any BNSF trains. Just one train in 5 hours was pretty disappointing. Good thing I was just as happy to be photographing old cabooses and a GN bridge.
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