Richmond Beach

Switching Wells Point

This morning I stumbled across the BNSF switching the oil facility at Wells Point (aka Point Wells). Got a nice train & train shot (above) and a zoom to confirm it is actually switching (bottom). Maybe in my 1970s slides I have the BN switching there, but I don't know.

I did manage to find one of my shots of Great Northern RS-2 217 switching there circa 1963-64 (below). That day we found a broken rail not far from there, and told the switch crew on the RS, who called it in. When the International came through a bit later, it was running "wrong main" and avoiding the break. We felt like heroes. I had pictures of the break and the International as well. I wonder if I still do.

Backlit

Richmond Beach Sidings

I've been photographing trains at Richmond Beach Park on and off since 1966, but I don't think I've ever seen them switching the sidings there before today—I've seen work equipment and stored cars in the sidings, but actual switching?

I seem to recall reading that the sidings were built during World War II, to support the heavy oil traffic for the Wells Point facility, a bit to the North (railroad East).

So it seemed entirely appropriate that it was tank cars being switched here again today.

There is quite a bit going on at Point Wells these days, with the facility being dismantled and cleaned up.

I have no idea if these tank cars are associated with that, or it was purely coincidence that they were in the old tank car siding.

GN Meadowdale 1967

This yellowed print of Great Northern F-units hauling freight, with its visible staple holes from occasional bulletin board decoration may truly have been taken in February 1967, but could be from a preceding month -- it took me a while to get through a roll of film and get it processed in those days.

The camera was a folding Zeiss 620 roll film camera, with bellows mounted lens. Fun to operate: first you would set the f-stop and shutter speed, then the focus, then cock the lens, all with little levers and scales on the lens, then frame through the folding viewfinder, then flip up & turn the little D-lever to advance the film until the next number showed up in the little red window (covered by a sliding shutter to reduce slow light leaks between use -- or between shots on sunny days).

Impetus to go find this photo was a recent psrail group post warning that the Meadowdale pier grade crossing would soon be fenced off.

My photo position was obviously out towards the end of the pier, a place not always publicly accessible in the intervening years, and not one I recall returning to in any case, though I have driven past the grade crossing a few times.

I had hoped to find what I recall as a companion piece to this shot, taken the same day, showing a Northern Pacific train, presumably detouring due to troubles somewhere between Black River and Bromart.

Perhaps I am wrong, and it was actually an early BN train with an all-NP consist, from a different trek out the pier. But I remember that image's 'golden hour' post-storm lighting being much as this shot, and I remember it being a print, not a slide, so 1967 is more likely.

Either way, it was surely a Sumas turn, with a full F-unit consist, and most likely with the standard trailing geep for en route switching.

And just for the heck of it, here is a reasonably good guess of an unyellowed and undimmed version of the GN print. My monitor isn't good enough for particularly accurate photo work, so I'll have to check it at the library before I know better.
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Bremerhaven 1970

I took quite a few train pictures while I was in Germany, 1970 to 1972.

These are some poor quality digital copies I made a few years ago.

I am hoping that by working with them, I will get inspired to go back to the slides and make better digital versions.

As well as make digital copies of images I didn't make then, for one reason or another.

These are all from Bremerhaven (BR 50 steam & ship, 1971?) and the line north to Cuxhaven (V 100 diesels, 1970), the latter after work on long some evenings -- very hard to restore proper color for that 'golden hour' look.

Delta Junction 2003

A BNSF train brings logs into Everett across the Snohomish River Bridges. September 17, 2003.

Bremerhaven Streetcars 1970-71

One of my favorite things about living in Bremerhaven, Germany, in 1970 & 1971 was the Straßenbahn.

It is long gone now, and was only a single line (evocatively numbered "Line 2") while I was there.

When I look at a map of Bremerhaven, from then or now, I realize how garbled my navigational memories are -- I almost always navigated via the streetcar route when at all possible, and have little remaining sense of more "important" paralleling arterials.