Trains of Edmonds, Washington

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According to The Diesel Shop, CN 3164 is an ET44AC "on order." I wonder if this was its maiden voyage from the factory.

There is a photo dated 12-28-2018 of two new 3100 series units on the CN roster page. They also appear to have the same stickers on the sides of the cabs.
http://www.thedieselshop.us/CN.HTML
 
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Seattle Snowmagedon has finally passed, leaving about a foot on the roofs of the houses on my court. Temps are warming up, so it is on to Slushpocalypse.
 
By Wednesday (2-13-19) the main streets in town were clear, but I needed 4WD to travel the one block out of my court. We have emerged from the Dark Ages and are now able to photograph most of the afternoon/evening passenger parade in daylight, so my son and I went down to Sunset Ave.

I shot the 4:30pm Sounder meeting a southbound (tt/west) empty coal train at 1/30 sec. to give the illusion of speed. This technique is still a work in progress for me.

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I seldom see empty coal trains go through town. The second unit was an SD70MAC in executive/Eddie Bauer/Grinstein green.

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Does anyone now what this electronic gadget is? I have never seen one before.

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I was holding my breath to see if the 5:00pm Sounder and Chicago bound Empire Builder (Amtrak #8) would arrive before sunset.

Sounder

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Builder

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I have been acting as my wife's chauffeur until the snow melts enough for her to drive the Avalon. She sent me a text to pick her up at work, so I did not get to see the coal train depart and photograph the rear DPU power.
 
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A lot of trains were rolling through Edmonds Friday afternoon (2-15-19). I was unable to photograph all of them as I was making the rounds of the various locations where I photograph birds. Here are the ones that I got.

Sunset Ave.
A Canada bound coal train had an executive/Eddie Bauer/Grinstein green SD70MAC 9678 in the consist. The oldest of these units were purchased nearly 25 years ago for coal service. I wonder how many millions of high tonnage miles they have racked up. Certainly a statement of EMD reliability.

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Rear DPU

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The gentleman sitting on the bench was taking videos of passing trains.

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A southbound (tt/west) local(?) stopped briefly for a northbound (tt/east) merchandiser.

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The merchandiser had a lot of empty lumber rack cars in its consist.


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The local(?) was powered by 3009, a GP40M still in one of the many variations of Cascade green, and swooped out 2603, a GP39-3.
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Behind the power of the local(?) were seven Boeing bunker flats.

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A Loram Railvac machine was in the middle of the train.

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I keep calling the train a "local" with a ? as it was quite long. I was not counting the cars, but I estimate the train was nearly a mile long based on its length in relation to the locations of MP 18 and MP 17. There were many tank cars in the consist.

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Fishing pier
I relocated to the fishing pier and missed several trains that passed through town. Two or three trains had CN power in their consists including at least one full width body unit.

I made it a point to take photos, however poor, of this northbound (tt/east) due to the number of older units in its consist. The nine diesels were as follows starting with the lead diesel.

297: SD75I
1664: SD40-2
1469: SD60M (Cascade green)
333: GP60B
268: SD75M
1454: SD60M
290: SD75I
2136: GP38AC (Cascade green)
2279: GP38-2

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It was unusual for me to photograph three Cascade green units passing through town in one day. I wonder how long it will be before they, too, get "swooped."
 
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Sunday afternoon (2-17-19) an extremely late Seattle bound Empire Builder (Amtrak #7) led by a BNSF diesel pulled out of the Edmonds station at 4:30pm, the time Chicago bound #8 is scheduled to leave Seattle. I don't know whether or not #8 was canceled or departed very late, as the train must still be cleaned and restocked in Seattle before it can leave for Chicago.

The train pulled out of the station as my son and pulled up in our pickup. I should have picked a better location to photograph it as we were looking directly into the low winter sun from our usual vantage point at the #2 viewing platform of the marsh. These two photos, taken by my son with the 1Dx + my old 100-400L telephoto zoom (the newer one has to go to the shop once again due to operator error :mad:), were the only ones that turned out. The Builder had the usual number of cars, so I am guessing there was something wrong with the Amtrak Genesis unit that prompted the addition of the freight engine.

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Earlier that day we saw another northbound (tt/east) freight pulled by a lashup of older units pass Sunset Ave., but I was not parked in a position to get good photographs.
 
BNSF 297 (SD75I) and 1664 (SD40-2), the first two engines in that contingent of nine older units I photographed heading a northbound (tt/east) freight last Friday afternoon, were the only two units on a Tuesday (2-19-19) evening southbound (tt/west) garbage train. I saw the train pass the marsh, but I did not have a camera with me as it was too dark for good photos.

There must be a wye somewhere north of Edmonds as the two units were in the same order as last Friday, but pointed south instead of north.

On a positive note, we are finally getting three weeks worth of home garbage and recycling picked up now that the snow has melted.
 
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It is that time of year in the Puget Sound region when you have to make use of every sunny day as you don't know when the next one will arrive. Thursday (2/21/19) was one of those sunny days, so my son and I made the usual rounds photographing birds and trains. Some days we photograph more birds, some days we photograph more trains, and some days are an even split between the two.

We started at the marsh where my son took these photos of a northbound (tt/east) with the 7DII + 16-35L wide angle zoom.

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Rear DPU's.

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Next stop was Brackett's Landing North, where he took these shots of a second northbound.

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Rear DPU's

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I took these shots of the rear DPU's with the 5DIII + 500L telephoto + 2x III teleconverter mounted on a tripod.

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I followed the train across Brown's Bay with the super telephoto setup. I did not see the eagle among the crows at Shell Creek spit until I got home and looked at the photos on the computer.

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A tiny patch of snow on my lawn is all that is left of the snow that I shoveled off the driveway. We spent the weekend in Wenatchee while my son participated in the Special Olympics Winter Games. The entire town is still covered in snow due to the record snowfall they had in February.
 
My son and I went down to the marsh Thursday (3-7-19) afternoon to begin photographing Marsh March Madness 2019. A short Chicago bound Empire Builder (Amtrak #8) passed by on time with two Genesis units on the point.

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My son and I were at the marsh on a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon (3-10-19) with little wind. He photographed two northbound (tt/east) oil tankers passing through town.

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The first one had a fairly clean BNSF War Bonnet unit in the rear DPU set.

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His photos of the second tanker show how the foliage at the marsh has really taken a beating by this winter's rain, wind, and snow. It will be interesting to see if it bounces back with super growth like last year.

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