greatcats
Engineer
I am out on a two + week road trip from Arizona, primarily to examine volcanoes, as I am a volunteer for the National Park Service at Sunset Crater near Flagstaff. I am also visiting several friends in Utah, Montana, Oregon, and Nevada. Yesterday I left my hosts' home on the west shore of Flathead Lake, Montana and wanted to follow the railroad west into Washington. I joined US 2 at Kalispell and headed west. I expected the railroad to join somewhere before Libby but this was not the case. It evidently follows a route through the wilderness only reached by secondary roads. I stopped for lunch at the Libby Cafe ( pretty good old fashioned place ) and before resuming driving headed down the street to Libby station, where trains only stop in the middle of the night. There is a fairly new concrete platform and the waiting room, not open at this time, did look cozy and inviting. One big demerit while peering through the window - a hand lettered sign advising that THE restroom was temporarily out of order. I wonder if that is always the case. Back on the road into the Idaho Panhandle - I really love this drive, and one reason I took it as it is not visible from the Empire Builder, which I took east last October. I have been in these parts before, but not in the town of Sandpoint. The station sits next to an elevated highway and is a bit tricky to reach, necessitating a reverse move through town, back over a bridge, and up a somewhat obscure driveway. However, the sight was encouraging of what I understand is the former Northern Pacific station. Contractors were at work on the forlorn looking building, and while the man shooed me away from his work area, due to ' insurance regulations running the world " he explained that part of the building was being renovated to create a handicapped accessible restroom and provide a waiting room. I tend to believe that this is a project of the city.
I decided to follow US 2 to Spokane, which wasn't so great, getting bogged down in traffic. The railroad following this route is evidently not used as the mainline, as it was unsignalled; it probably was the trackage heading south from the station in Sandpoint that is now the mainline. North of Spokane I passed several trailer parks where evidently there have been sever storms and saw more than a few trailers and RVs crushed by large trees.
I certainly saw more than one LONG LONG train of oil tankers headed east. What I found interesting was that a boxcar is placed behind the locomotives and ahead of the tankers, and also a boxcar on the rear of the otherwise all oil tanker train. My guess is that this is sort of a buffer in the event of a mishap from explosions. This is being written on the picnic table at the KOA Kamground in Pasco, where I spent a warm but fairly comfortable night in my tent. Shortly I will drive down the Columbia to have dinner with friends in Portland, following the north side of the river by the railroad. However, I'm not going to hang around to spot the late running 27.
I decided to follow US 2 to Spokane, which wasn't so great, getting bogged down in traffic. The railroad following this route is evidently not used as the mainline, as it was unsignalled; it probably was the trackage heading south from the station in Sandpoint that is now the mainline. North of Spokane I passed several trailer parks where evidently there have been sever storms and saw more than a few trailers and RVs crushed by large trees.
I certainly saw more than one LONG LONG train of oil tankers headed east. What I found interesting was that a boxcar is placed behind the locomotives and ahead of the tankers, and also a boxcar on the rear of the otherwise all oil tanker train. My guess is that this is sort of a buffer in the event of a mishap from explosions. This is being written on the picnic table at the KOA Kamground in Pasco, where I spent a warm but fairly comfortable night in my tent. Shortly I will drive down the Columbia to have dinner with friends in Portland, following the north side of the river by the railroad. However, I'm not going to hang around to spot the late running 27.